


Levels Below

by jaybbird



Category: Steam Powered Giraffe
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Light Angst, Other, Platonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-10
Updated: 2016-07-04
Packaged: 2018-07-14 05:05:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 43,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7154726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaybbird/pseuds/jaybbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ezra has struggled for ages on a project that could revolutionize the world to no avail. Perhaps seeking answers in the depths of the ancient manor could show him the light?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Escaping Me

There was a legend, or so the saying goes, of an unusual robot and a girl, buried deep within the halls of Walter Manor. This robot wasn’t built by the Walters, instead dragged in on the coattails of a mysterious creator long ago, before the apprenticeships officially began. Perhaps this story may be true what with all the other things that lace the halls with bouts of magick and science alike, or maybe the other Workers and interns were full of hot air, even more so than Rabbit, the Spine or even Hatchworth

Ezra, however, wasn’t above chasing legends. Unfortunately for that little tale, he had his own projects to deal with. When he wasn’t whiling away the hours with the other scientists and alchemists who’d bit the blue matter bullet and worked on Peter the Sixth’s assignments or swam elbows deep in robot chassis to fix the infinite problems that arose from their adventures. He also had proclivities to worry about and distractions, but when those were said and done he was always at the cusp of some bright new idea.

The empty chassis of two robots haunted his private workspace. Their designs grew dust, unconquered and unfinished. Amongst the brightest minds of his day and yet it eludes him, the secret to this synthetic life even when he rubbed elbows on a day-to-day basis with a trio of androids and gynoids that had personalities all their own, a portrait of a human mind, if flawed and wired. But what was a human mind, if not a flawed electrical machine that churned away to give us life? That was a thought for another day, he’d given himself a headache now.

He sat at the break room table, crunching into an apple with little regard to his surroundings as he ate. His mind calculated new ideas and formulas and chemical composites. God, what a waste of grant money that jetpack was that they’d tried last week, he pondered, what he wouldn’t give for another couple of vials of that raw matter sample he’d played with some months ago.

A couple of the other Walter staff filtered in and out of the joint kitchen, one propping their feet up on the couch only to be scolded by the others. They were distracting and as much as he smiled at their banter, his eyes kept raking over the large stack of very old books and patent notes that towered next to his meager meal. It’d take him a while to get through it, but he promised the automated librarian that he’d return them soon and it may have gotten a bit out of hand this time. 

"Ezra!" One of his coworkers barked and he jumped. He looked at them expectantly and the blue haired 30-something grinned, "You really reading books that old? DaVinci ain’t gonna have much for ya we ain’t already studied!" 

"We learn something new every day from looking back at stuff like this, how do you think we got space travel out of it, or how I got here!" The Kazoolander on the couch smiled a confident shark-toothed grimace which was wiped off their face as they grabbed for the slipping handle of their ridiculously large hammer before it hit the ground.

"You fell out of Hatchworth’s hatch, not the nearest Stargate," the first jibed, teasing. 

One of the younger guys was looking at the stack of books with marked interest, running fingers over aging but preserved spines. Ezra really had to dig for these things, the copies hidden deep in the shelves which, despite the intentions of a library, wasn’t incredibly organized. He had hoped that perhaps looking a bit farther he could see the time that had spawned so many of the technological marvels that still walked amongst them and had given him the honour of calling them friends. But as the guy picked up one of the old scientific readers, he plucked it out of his grasp, standing and shuffling the stack into his arms. 

"If I’m gonna get any if these done I really gotta work double time. I’ll have to talk to you guys later!" He smiled cordially, awkwardly dumping his trash in the can, and backing out the doorless room as they afforded him some short waves goodbye before more banter was tossed around over coffee and… whatever was in the glowing coffee pot next to it.

Shifting his weight from foot to foot he could hardly wait for the elevator at the end of the hall and started down the sprawling steps to his lab. He wondered idly if, when the bots returned, they’d be doing mechanics rehearsals with the sound engineer. It always made him nervous when they flew all the way out to Jersey. 

\----

It was ridiculously late when he woke up in his lab later and it made him wonder if the words on the pages stuck to him like silly putty. Rubbing his face, he groaned and leaned back in his chair. Third time that week he’d done this, and he was nearly through another of the great old Peter the First’s works. It was less a novel or a textbook and more a bound set of scribbled notes, frantic and everywhere, with large centrefolds of illustrations outlining the very vague notions of robots here and there. 

There had been three whole pages with doodles of Delilah Moreau, scrawled in the same messy ink as the centrefold blueprints and dotted with silly hearts. The old man had been infatuated, after all, and the scribbles hinted as such, despite knowing how well that turned out for him. Deciphering on later pages what was journal, what was lovelaced side notes and what was viable information became difficult. The man wrote like a doctor with useless swirls and flourishes that was downright code-like. At the very least you could see what drove him. And now, as the plans became more science, Ezra flicked through the last quarter of the thick tome, with confusing formulas and ideas so stream of consciousness that even Six would have struggled to determine what they meant.

The outbox to inbox ratio of the library’s wares was not inherently balanced to his favour. Despite the fact he’d already made his own discoveries, handfuls of secrets and patents he’d made at his leisure, the secrets to the robot’s cores was nowhere to be seen. He didn’t want to use blue matter, no, Ezra wasn’t in the business of recreating past successes. He wanted to innovate. He wanted to bring about fresh, new ideas, new robots and new means of power, or personality! Even if he were to apprentice in Matter Mastery under David or Bunny, their mimery would prove difficult to learn around, as clever as they are. 

Despite the monopoly of technology that seemed to happen at the Manor, the company wasn’t as shut doored as they could’ve been to others projects and free roaming robots, all with blue matter cores that were either pet projects of the apprentices or wandered in like strays, drawn to the house at the center of a blue matter rift which caused such oddities. Well, technically, they couldn’t close their doors, as the whole of the place had none. Often it was the first thing asked about, but the answer was always more benign than expected, as they simply posed a hazard should a need to escape arise. He was grateful for his own door, suddenly, that kept his work from prying eyes as he slid the check-out slip between the pages and snapped it shut as if catching a fly.

_No, the thought was punctuated by the sound, the other robots that are under our care won’t help much. Blue matter is all we know, what with the incidences other matter has caused in the past…_

He dropped the book on the counter, loose screws shivering on the surface. There was a strained expression crossing his features as he went to the lifeless chassis that sat half finished. Resting his palm on the cold metal, he sighed. They took a human enough form, but without that spark of life they were as limp as marionettes. He began to second guess himself. What if there wasn’t a new form of matter, he wondered, before going to his locked desk and freeing his notes from the drawers. He looked over his accomplishments.

His experiments were vast, and towards the end, desperate. There was many a matter here and there, mixed and matched and cleverly twisted together like an arcane bartender. The discoveries were mind boggling, beyond comprehension and scale for many, with what these combinations could do. He itched at the stain of blue matter over his eye, tired. None provided what he needed though. There was no triumph there, wonderment and surprise, yes, but the end goal he reached for wasn’t here among the files. 

Coughing roughly, Ezra stretched beneath his binder. He was tempting fate with having worn it for so long. His bed was calling to him and he tucked away the files, locking up. He clicked off the desk lamp quietly, tomorrow the Walter robots would arrive by mail and he’d be sent to unpack them. Finding his way to the door he paused a moment, muttering a quick goodnight to the dormant chassis bathed in the darkness behind him before closing it and heading to his room.


	2. Ideas Unformed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ezra struggles through more ancient notebooks and finds that not all these notes belong to who he thought....

When the pride and joy of Walter Robotics arrived back home shipped in large crates, the Workers were buzzing. Prying the robot siblings from their boxes, Ezra was helping to oversee that no damage came to them while travelling. The lack of dings or dents was a good sign and the all clear was called for starting them up from travel mode. Chelsea and Camille bid everyone adieu as they left to unpack, turning over responsibility to Ezra’s little squad and their manager. Two Workers to a bot, they worked quickly to clear away any of the packing peanuts and crate boards, setting the robots standing in the center of the lab they’d dragged them to. 

Making sure everything worked quite right, Rabbit coughed up a packing peanut with a couple bangs on her chestplate. Looking at it, she shrugged, then ate it. The Spine stretched and twisted lightly, considering every movement with purpose. Hatchworth just yawned and rubbed his tummy, smiling lazily about at the small squadron of mostly-humans.

"Welcome home, guys!" One of the others greeted and Ezra lowered his clipboard and beamed at them.

Rabbit sprung over, giving him a hug, "O-o-ohhh, we missed you!" Ezra struggled to keep his balance under her tremendous weight, patting her arm lightly.

"N-nice to see you too!" He choked as the Spine approached some of the others and began chatting to them. One of the others smiled as he handed over Hatchworth’s favourite pair of shoes which had been nicely tucked away in the box with him. 

The squad manager cleared their throat, looking around as the air of business had begun slipping away. "We still have a lot to do today before they can settle in. Mechanics rehearsals are in order, so meet in the staging lab for diagnostics then get hooked up. Team Bananas," the manager sighed at the silly name, "will take over, and Team Carrots will be going over the tests with Mister Negrete."

So Ezra was free to go, it seemed, as Team Apples lead the bots to diagnostics. The room wasn’t far and the familiar forms of the robots in front of him were glad to stretch their legs. He had hoped to see Steve but business was business and he wasn’t working there to lollygaggle at the heels of the rumored dragon man. He did spot him unpacking coils of wires when they arrived, however. The sound engineer was working double-time to get the stuff ready for the tech check and Team Bananas was already hooking up the robots for a check-over. 

Ezra hung back and went over Chelsea and Camille’s reports, which had been dropped on his clipboard before they scurried off. He approached Steve as he was working and the dreadlocked head didn’t even lift from his work before he greeted him with a short, "Hey." 

"O-oh, hey! I, uh," Ezra cleared his throat and smiled, "I need your report from this show?" He gestured meekly to the clipboard in his hands.

"Sure, lemme just…" He finished coiling and putting away the travel wire in its case with the rest, labelled with different colors of tape. "’kay."

Standing, he wasn’t much taller than Ezra, but he flashed a grin and speed-walked to his backpack, tugging out the papers and passing them over. Clipping them onto Camille’s pages, there was a pause before Ezra was about to speak but Steve was on the move again. Erza forgot how the guy sprinted everywhere with coils of wire dangling from his hands or messages for the sound management staff. He sighed. Alright, another time then. 

"See ya!" He called when he dropped the clipboard with B-team’s leader, and received a wave, despite not facing him as Steve poured over the soundboard with one of the other Workers as they discussed something important. 

He didn’t take it personally, leaving with his team. They’d talk later. He only smiled as his manager congratulated Team Apple on another check in well done and dismissed them to their assignments. His thoughts then switched to the project he was headed towards, feet on autopilot to lab 73 as his head swam.

\---------

Talking with Steve later at dinner break was fair at best but not a groundbreaking conversation. They discussed the book he brought with him, the end bits of the tome he’d been struggling through since last night. Steve wasn’t an arcanist or an alchemist or even a scientist, so while he couldn’t make heads nor tails of the wickedly long formulas that began sprawling the pages lately, he still found the notebook fascinating. He asked all the right questions too and the history of the notes wasn’t lost on him. The talk of imagining Peter Walter’s vision was exciting. The wonderment that might befall him if he were to see the place now!

When dinner was over, Ezra said goodnight to Steve, but instead of heading to bed he ducked away, going down the stairs to his own little lab, intending to finish the book so he could return it and the other two he’d managed tomorrow as a show of good faith to the librarian. He narrowly avoided a run-in with the cursed screaming chair for the fourth time that week and had to remind himself to tell Rabbit to set it aflame yet again. He demonstrated a passing ability to sneak sometimes where Walter Manor was concerned. The rift that had been open until recently was sealed but the endless curiosities, nightmare, and Kazooland-exported problems plagued the halls that were nearly endless with the twisted form reality took here. Unfortunately, it made getting to the lab a little difficult some days.

When he was settled in finally, the reading took only a few hours. The end result was about the same as before, nothing. The book had been enlightening, yes, and fascinating, but it didn’t teach on the subjects of matters. He still didn’t know where to find it, how to use it! He groaned and shut the heavy covers. Pushing it to the side he rubbed his eyes. He’d need glasses soon if he wasn’t careful. Smooshing his hands farther up his face and into his hair his fingers coiled the dark blue streak around and around. He needed to continue, the rest of the books were due soon.

Tugging one off the stack he cracked it open. The book was nearly as old as Walter’s notes, but in much nicer condition. It had a strange mixture of typewritten pages and messily scribbled ideas on the edges. However rather than published, it appeared to be a manuscript for a book, despite the large chicken scratch emblazoned across the title stating DO NOT READ. Whomever wanted to keep its contents a secret was probably long since dead, so he soldiered onward. 

The handwriting was terrible when there was some. It seemed less like a manuscript and more like a bizarre collection of thoughts. Sometimes chunks of typewritten paper were pasted in alongside ideas, blurry old photos of experiments that he didn’t have a clue what they did, or at least, were supposed to do as they were often labelled FAILED on the tape holding them in. It was like a scrapbook of pure confusion. He shut it again. This wasn’t written by Peter the First, that much was certain, but when he had asked for early pioneering in matter studies, the librarian had handed him this off the shelf, plucking ancient books and newer with abandon. Perhaps that hovering automated automaton had gone too far back in the archives.

Who had wrote this, though? He wondered, looking it over. It was labelled one of many, a volume somewhere in the middle. The Author’s name, unfortunately, was scribbled out of the label on the inside just below the large warning about the words within. The letters were legible beneath and he’d hazard a guess at Annie before giving in. He’d go back to the library tomorrow and see if the first volume was there instead. He laughed a little, perhaps it’d be more legible before it’s owners obvious descent into madness. Picking up a different book, he began to read well into the night once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When am I even going to get to my own OC what the heck.


	3. A Hit of Inspiration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Book's secrets only grow as Ezra finds himself caught up trying to crack the code.

The library was a wreck of a place, if one were to be honest. However, no one was going to tell that to the automated system that organized everything. It hovered around like a literary angel and had a kind, if perpetually blank, face. The large rooms it wardened over had sagging shelves with books of all ages and types, roughly categorized in the worst rendition of the Dewey Decimal System anyone had ever seen. It was clear the hovering feminine creature was broken of a sort, a well known early project of Six. When he was young he’d grown tired of the library having no one to organize it and built the thing and didn’t have the heart to either fix it or scrap it. Rumor has it that at some point the Spine tried to ask it out but to no avail, the poor creature was all in it for the books. 

All the Walter Workers went to it for it’s encyclopaedic knowledge of the shelves, even Ezra. The bot would chastise them for not knowing better and they would simply agree lest they get into a row with the thing. Obviously the old contraption had given Ezra the wrong book. It’s happened before, so it wasn’t too much of a stretch to assume. But when the robot scanned the book and reported a sharp "[BOOK NOT FOUND]", he had every right to be confused.

"I checked this out less than a week ago, from the Early Matter Studies section?" He hoped to clarify, maybe it’d jog its memory. Another scan and the same monotone "[BOOK NOT FOUND]" resulted.

"This book does not belong to the library. Donations are always accepted," The robot offered but he shook his head, pulling the book back into his arms before letting it take the rest. 

"No, I’ll hang onto it for now," he shrugged it off as the robot held up the volumes to their eyes, scanning them with a blink and checking them back in. 

"The rest of your books are due in [3] days," it told him flatly, "Have a nice day!" 

He hurried out of the library and down the hall, making sure the librarian wouldn’t come screeching after him for the book as if he stole it. Finding his way through the passageways he settled on a stairwell, one of many, and cracked the book open carefully. If it didn’t belong to the library and the owner was scribbled right out of the history books what else was there to do? Something unusual was abound now and knowing Walter Manor, this old scrapbook-looking tome was meant to be in his hands. 

And now it felt like a secret. Like an unusual secret, painfully indecipherable and confusing. But if he couldn’t read the book someone else wouldn’t need to take a look. Steve was the first he thought of, honestly. He needed to be sure though because above all else he knew that this book was either too good to be true or could get him in a lot of trouble….

\-----

Walter Workers are a gossipy bunch. It was innocent enough the tales they told, usually silly stories of their own misadventures meant to impress coworkers and bolster their esteem as much as any other scientific group. In the end the most popular stories were the mysteries of Walter Manor itself.

The building where they worked and resided was alive with the bizarre. The ever shifting form of reality that resided there before the rift was closed had opened a new world of possibility where the veil between Kazooland and Earth was thin. It had provided the giant cat Marshmallow after all. The tales grew and stretched beyond imagination between the close knit group of blue and white scientists, alchemists and engineers.

Unfortunately, only the tallest of tales were brought out when new staff was brought in. Whether they were interns or cleaners or Workers, everyone eventually heard about ghosts or legends or superstitions. 

The reason this is unfortunate is that while Ezra was looking at the photos pasted into the illegible ledger, the new hires were getting break time. He was halfway through his apple in the nice, quiet break room when a cluster of anxious little interns from the nearby University were led in by a handful of Workers. They’d clearly taken some measure of joy out of the ordeal their younger counterparts were being put through and while one half of the group seemed tired and jumpy, the other half was in nothing short of awe. 

A Worker sat at the table as Ezra snapped his book shut and shoved it under the lunch bag hurriedly. A bit of the spine stuck out at an odd angle as the fishy Worker Pira took up their spot on the couch by the table.

"Gather round kids, this is where you’ll eat sleep and drink in your longer hours at Walter Manor!" Grinning their sharp toothed grin, the pale-scaled Kazoolander chuckled as the younguns settled down around the tables like kids at their first day of school. 

A Worker guy with streaks of blue from root to tip sighed and pushed Pira’s feet from the arm of the couch. "And now the rules, No Feet On the Couch," a sharp but playful glare at the fishperson, "No Leaving Experiments in the Fridge, Wash Your Dishes…" They could go on but trailed off, hoping the group got the picture.

"I got the Ban Hammer right here too, kiddos, rules are privileges or something like that," They grinned as the other Worker fixed his hair behind his ear and tugged on his tailcoat before grabbing a seat at the table and pulled out a PB&J. 

The interns settled in, some on the ground and some in chairs, one brave one even hazarded a seat beside Pira themselves, a brave soul. Ezra had hoped they’d eat in the Cafeteria. Only he and a few others preferred the break room. They too were workaholics or at least preferred the usual privacy it had. Not today though, as stories began to float around of the Ban Hammer and its many uses. Warnings turned to tall tales quickly and as Ezra ate he felt eyes on him. 

It wasn’t until he looked up that he realized it wasn’t the interns who were staring at him. The worker with streaked hair gazed at him intently but when caught he looked away and began eating his peanut butter and jelly, shoving a post it note into his pocket with a face flushed blue. Ezra’s face scrunched up in confusion and he took another bite from his apple, looking away as the stories continued to drone on with excited laughter and bubbly words. He had too much on his mind for this crowd right now.

"...Careful while using the stairs or the elevators!" he tuned in to one of the stories absently, "The things will take you places, and there is way too much in the levels below you don’t want to get caught up in!"

"Yeah," Pira perked up with a predatory little grin, "They say there’s a girl way down there, a relic of the past, before any of us showed up. She’s got old clothes, like the Victorian alive! She’s bound to be lonely, what with having been trapped down there for a century or more, doncha think? Nothing but a crazy old robot for company, the Walter’s themselves didn’t even make! Who knows what’d happen to anyone they find, maybe they’ll keep you down there like Alice and the old Mad Hatter…?" 

A swift kick to Pira’s heavy boot sent the fish into gurgling giggles as the interns gave them either fearful or excited looks. "Don’t tease them! There isn’t a girl down there who wouldn’t be dead by now! That story’s been around since the 80’s."

"The _**18**_ 80s!" The fish waggled their fingers mysteriously. Another swift kick to the boot sent them spiralling into laughter. The more anxious of the group seemed to calm down with the punishments Pira got from teasing them, but the awestruck became more enthused. Ezra was getting an earful, the story germinating in his mind. 

"What if it’s true?" He blurted out, then flushed blue in embarrassment. Taking a breath he continued, turning to Pira, "What if there is another robot, not built by the Walters and just as old as the band?" 

_What if, what if, what if…?_

"You don’t really believe that story, do ya?" Pira scoffed teasingly. Ezra could feel the eyes again, but not just the other Worker’s now, even the interns.

"It wouldn’t be far fetched would it? We already collect robots like foster puppies, don’t we? Plenty are maintained by us every day! What if there’s something new, or something old, we’ve never seen before?!" Oh gosh, Ezra was getting excited now, his mouth running off but he was grinning madly.

"This ain’t Kazooland, buddy! Sure we’ve got robots up the wazoo but there hasn’t been a new system for decades, this reality couldn’t handle it. Leave the big stuff to the Kazooland Alchemists, why don’t we?" The fishy humanoid leaned back in their seat.

No, that can’t just be it. The rift was open here once. Kazooland was so close you could touch it. The instability, the robot, the girl, the story, levels below his feet. Had it been here this whole time, an answer so tangible he could taste it? 

He couldn’t just let it go. Without another word and his mind racing, he grabbed the book and his lunchbag and practically launched himself from the room. As he sped down the hall back toward the library he heard the voice of every intern raising behind him in unanimous confusion and excitement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided I really wanted to add more Pira to this. Regardless of actual personality I may or may not have accidentally wrote them a bit like Undyne?? It's the fish person with giant weapon thing, okay!? -EJ


	4. Check, Yes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ezra plans for an expedition as his friends grow concerned.

Walter Manor moved from Ezra’s path out of sheer intimidation today. He wouldn’t have even noticed anymore, not when Rabbit tried to keep up with him or when one of his managers tried to slow him down. The guy was on a warpath with his brain on fire. Every thought raced around like bumper cars on speed. He had a _plan_ now, an honest to God plan that wasn’t just a bunch of books stacked to high heavens.

Eventually everyone stopped trying to keep up with him and the halls grew emptier as he descended the staircase floor by floor. A few down and there was no one left. He only pondered a moment if the new hires would begin filling these labs. He needed privacy. The thought was chased away and he got the door to his lab open.

Dropping coils upon coils of papers on his desk he filed through them with searching eyes. He peeled one open, pinning the blueprints down with stuff across the desk top. He scoured it, looking for the lower floors. He pulled out another as he looked, peeling that one open as well. Layouts upon layouts, the Walter Manor was soon sprawled at his feet, spread and pinned across every surface. The copies of the floor plans were everywhere and he quickly began organizing them by date.

1980s. That’s when the stories started. He kneeled on the plans. The Manor’s updates were vast and often as the ages carried on and more advancements were made. By the time the apprenticeship program began in 1984 they were well and truly sprawling with labs tucked in every nook and cranny. Let alone the warping that happened when the rift was open, how they completed any construction was beyond him. But for now he tucked away anything before 1980 and kept the others out.

He needed a better vantage point to take all of them in. Standing on a chair he looked around him. He didn’t know if the warping was mapped out, or at least he couldn’t tell. The plans were convoluted enough and it felt like the place went on forever as it is. But he needed a map and these copies were perfect. It felt like he was planning an expedition and he wasn’t wrong. Much of the manor was uncharted territory, the plans of many of these didn’t even mark the secret passageways that littered the upper floors. He grabbed some colored pens and began marking them in himself, they were his copies after all, he could do what he wanted. 

A sharp knock at the door and his fiery excitement turned to a glare. Not now, he didn’t need guests he needed progress. Another knock and he ran to the door and opened it with a huff. The irritation was wiped away as Steve stood there with little short of surprise on his face. He must’ve looked mad in more ways than one. 

"Are you okay…?" He peered over Ezra’s shoulder with a furrowed brow at the many maps and layouts that were everywhere. "I heard you were out for blood today." 

Walter Workers are by far, the gossipist bunch.

"I’m fine, I’m a bit caught up in a project though." Ezra stepped into Steve’s line of sight, blocking his view of the room. "Did you need something?" He tried to seem calm and fine, he was just _so very excited._

"No, no, just checking up on you. Making sure you don’t do anything stupid," he grinned charmingly. 

_Now is not the time,_ Ezra thought to himself.

"I have it under control," Ezra huffed, "I know what I’m doing."

"And chasing ghost stories is now called ‘knowing what you’re doing’?" Steve raised an eyebrow. _Christ,_ Ezra had hoped to keep it somewhat under wraps. There isn’t much privacy in the world’s largest dorm is there?

"Look, if I find something, I’ll let you know and you can give yourself a circle of salt if that’s what you’re concerned about," Ezra snarked teasingly, laughing and retreating to his work. 

"You know that’s not it. Just don’t overwork yourself for something that might not even be there," he looked genuinely worried about him now and Ezra had enough sense to feel a little bad.

"It’ll be fine, I promise, now," He smiled as genuinely as he could muster, "I have a lot of work to do. Thanks though."

Steve sighed but smiled weakly and shut the door behind him. There was still a lot to do. 

\-----

Ezra packed a backpack full of supplies for what may be a really long walk. 

Dampening Gun? Check. Rolls of Blueprints? Check. Book of Minor Arcane Defense? Check. Colored pens and highlighters? Check. Spare clothes just in case? Check. Sleeping bag in case he gets lost? Check. Flashlight? Check. Three Dimensional Compass? Check. The mysterious journal? Check. Lunch? Check. Called out of lab duties today? Check. His own notebooks to catalogue his journey? Check. It was 8 am and he was ready to go, finally. 

His heart was thrumming with excitement as he shuffled the straps onto his shoulders. Why hadn’t anyone done this before? He felt like Indiana Jones venturing out into the ruins! He wanted to capitalize on this venture like an explorer on Mt. Everest. It might be just as dangerous too. Boy did he wish he had that Ban Hammer right about now. 

Doubts crept into his mind slightly. 

Maybe he really was mad? This could be a pointlessly dangerous adventure. It was only a story that should’ve died out in the 80s. The _**18**_ 80s, Pira’s teasing tone came back to him. He huffed. There was no turning back now though. If he could find just one clue that he was right, that there was something, anything more than blue matter and a scarred over rift in space-time deep below them, well….

He looked at the empty, hollow chassis that rested against each other in the corner of his work space. No, there was something here. He could feel it resonating in his bones. Something just below his feet, calling to him. His robots were waiting.

He went to the door and took a deep breath. Through that door and down the hall was the stairwell that would bring him spiraling ever further downward into the cavernous unyielding hallways. 

"May God have mercy on those who play his part," He quoted nervously before the door opened and he stepped into the hallway beyond.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note 1: He's quoting an alchemist I made up for an original story, who was against alchemy that manipulated the soul.
> 
> Note 2: I like to think Walter Worker apprenticeships began in 1984, just as the scientific side of the band picked up again and just before Five met his wife, whom I like to imagine was an early apprentice.


	5. Manifest Destiny

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ezra's expedition is rife with danger.

Walking is incredibly boring. 

Walking in _circles_ is even more so. 

And when you’re walking around a veritable maze miles underground where no one can give you directions with nothing but potentially outdated maps to rely on, it gets old faster than bruised apples. 

Ezra had walked through section 87 five times now, _five times!_ He couldn’t figure it out since there was only two directions, down and up! It wasn’t even a particularly big section of labs! He groaned and tried going upstairs this time, only to find that it was section 87 all over again. 

"Okay, screw this," he dug out the dampening gun from the backpack he’d packed and aimed it at the down staircase. It glowed blue after warming up for a minute and he fired, the sound resulting was like someone ripped fabric right next to his ear.

A ripple appeared over the stairwell and faded. Hazarding the stairs, he took a few steps down, then hurried through the rest. He came to a stop at, happily, Section 88. Figures, a small scar in space-time. What a mess. 

He’d already managed through one or two of these, having been able to bypass them simply with shortcuts and other things. He took the map out and a blue pen and drew a ripple over the stairway of that level. He’d have to remember it was there and worried how well the gun kept its charge. He was never in the squads that handled the rift scars that popped up over the Manor so he’d never had to use the thing before. He’d been trained, of course, it was a requirement to know how to use the dampening gun. 

A sigh and he continued on. Considering the long walk he’d already endured, he had seen some unusual things. One of the floors not far beneath his own was rife with spectres. The whole place was awash with silvery blue ghosts of ancient scientists, or at the very least, ancient looking. They floated through and around him with not a care in the world, empty vials being held up to the light as if they still held something. He’d tried to take a picture from the end of the hall before sprinting down the stairs but upon review it was as empty as any of the other sections. 

Another floor held toys, just lots of toys, or maybe all the same toy? He couldn’t be sure. It felt weirdly peaceful, but in a way that made his skin crawl. Like the back room of an antique store, where you’re not supposed to see. Coated in dust well-loved things were left to rot. Dozens of glass eyes followed him. The stairs felt like a relief when he’d crossed the threshold. 

A couple of the surrealist paintings yelled at him as he passed and an armchair tap danced after him like a puppy until he reached the section below. The poor thing fell down the steps after him and ran away whimpering like it’d been kicked. The weirdest things seemed to increase the farther down he got. It was as if the rift had split the very Earth under the Manor. That wasn’t too far off, he’d like to think. 

It almost felt late at night, the drowsiness that leaked through his very bones nearly dragged him to the ground. God, he was so _tired._ He pulled out his phone to look at the time, the numbers shifting on the screen. It only seemed to register as late to him. The time felt later and later and the clock got weirder and weirder and it took all he had to drag himself off the ground. The rooms he stumbled past all looked like bedrooms inside, plush and comfortable. 

Giant velvet pillows, silken sheets and fluffy beds. The downy white of the mattress looked dressed to kill and he was so very drawn to it, with eyes nearly crossed with sleepiness. 

He… needed to go back. Maybe he dropped something on the stairs? His brain was making excuses because even the carpet that wasn’t in the room a minute ago looked soft enough to lay on. He forgot the book. 

The book! It shook him enough. What if someone else found it while he was sleeping? He needed it. He pulled his legs away, tromping and stumbling as sleep pulled him further. He dragged himself up the stairs desperately and began to succumb to delirium. The book is on the next stair, or the next! It wasn’t until he reached the top that he collapsed, all of the weariness that had weighed him down like wet clothes was suddenly gone. The book was nowhere to be seen. He was breathing like he ran a marathon. He scrambled away from the door until he felt safe enough to rest.

"Wrong… turn…” He wheezed to himself. He lay on the linoleum until he had strength back in his arms and he pulled out the map for this section. He took out a green pen. Creature. Something, at the very least, to avoid. Good thing he dragged himself out of there. He felt the backpack for the book. It was still nestled neatly between the papers, something, at least, to motivate him.

Getting to his feet he spread the papers wide and looked over them. This section was almost done. He pulled out the next coil of paper, the guide to the next section. The lowest section was built in the 70s and they’d worked their way up. He hated to think what was left under there that he hadn’t already faced. He hoped he wouldn’t have to get so far. 

He looked over the third oldest blueprint with a sigh. He’d marked the others with the secret passageways he’d found and the creatures to avoid, rips and scars in blue and blockages in red. This one was blank. It felt like a whole new project, long and tiresome and lots and _lots_ more walking. He rolled the last layout and put it in the bag, taking the fresh one. He may as well keep it out. 

\-----

The stairs were like bookends to each bizarre hallway. Sometimes clinical and clean and white or classical and dusty, with furniture like a waiting room but each and every with labs upon labs. The doors weren’t on any of them so sometimes things would catch Ezra’s eye like a magpie. Old equipment, older papers. He was always so tempted to take whatever was left because it was clear no one had been down here but its unusual denizens for decades. He knew though, the consequences like those in ancient temples, the traps he’d already avoided. Not wanting to wake another sleeping beast everything was left behind for a later date, a note in the notebook, a little mark or key on the map. He would be back, he knows what’s down here thus far.

The elevator shut tight at the end of the hallway didn’t work, God knows he tried. Or perhaps there were so many floors it gave up, went back to the top. He was tempted to follow the same mindset halfway through, the map clutched in sweaty palms. He never wanted to walk another step. Maybe he should’ve stretched like they taught him in gym class. It probably wouldn’t have changed a thing. 

Darkness.

This hall was dark when he reached the bottom of the stairs. Black, but for a flickering light up ahead, a futzy flourescent of days past. He took pause at this and half of him screamed to run, the other half screaming to stay. He’d seen this scene in many a horror movie. Digging out his flashlight in a rush it clicked on as he nearly fumbled it with a racing heart. Of all the stuff to scare him, why this? 

In the beam of light he saw the hall was lined with carpet and wood. The elevator at the end of the long straight path mocked him with its dull metal doors shut tight, flanked by indoor plants, tall and reaching and an unknowable species. The leaves closed up when his flashlight hit them. 

The walls were a deep green wallpaper interrupted by the occasional oil lamp sconce despite the lining of fluorescent lights along the ceiling. Though there were paintings between each doorway, the rest of the labs were untouched by the bizarre decor. Still shiny linoleum and clinical lemon scent. He walked among them slowly as the floorboards creaked softly beneath the carpet. He could swear he heard music.

A small circular coffee table was placed beneath one of these paintings, a doily neatly pressed in the center like a cobweb. Two chairs, very different in style, were on either side. One was tall, thin backed and leather, wooden arms encircling it smoothly. The seat appeared to be embossed with some sort of company logo, and the feet carved to claws. The other was a large, cushy needlepoint wingback armchair. It was draped in a quilt and pillows, the needlework depicting flowers and the accompanying pillow stitched lovingly with a painting he recognized, but would later learn was named _The Happy Accidents of the Swing._ He barely caught a glimpse of _The Secret Garden_ nestled amongst the quilt’s folds.

The music was definite now and Ezra swiveled his flashlight to one of the doorways. A sliver of warm light filtered through a crack in the only door in the entirety of the floors he’d just muddled through. The soft glow was inviting, despite barely being able to see it. He approached it with caution, remembering the bedrooms of earlier.

The door looked like a front door, or perhaps the average door of a proper manor. The carved deep oak was simple and elegant but the wood was beginning to crack a little. The doorknob was brass with ribbons and flowers etched into it. The door had a number on it, metal, slightly rusty around the edges. 117. 

117, 117, he opened the map that had been crinkled in his fist. If there was any indication that this room was labelled or special, the thing was blank. Ezra looked at the door, digging out a pen and leaning against the wall. A large blue star was scribbled over the place where he stood. 

Rolling up the sheet, he placed it and the pen into the backpack and took a step back. Letting out his held breath, Ezra grabbed the door handle and pushed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note 1: The dampening gun is a safety invention six made and produced after the rift was closed in 2013. It dampens the effects of the rip in space-time and also helps with other curious things acting up.
> 
> Note 2: The Happy Accidents of the Swing is actually a painting about an orgasm, despite the painting itself being fully dressed and rather innocent. It's irrelevant, just my favourite art history fact. And Yes, I do actually own that pillow. -EJ


	6. X Marks the Spot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes it pays off to dream.

Perched upon a table in the center of the room was a robot.

Ezra looked behind him into the hall momentarily, wondering if the sleep creature had gotten him and he was dreaming while being slowly digested.

In the dim glow of oil lamps, the world was bathed in something akin to magick here, glinting off the bare metal chassis. He had never intended to time travel, yet here he was as if he’d took a step 120 years into the past. 

A big wooden work table, stained and cracked was beneath the robot who almost looked to be sleeping. It sat in the middle of the room littered with tools and books of varied sizes as Ezra shined his flashlight around to see if he could detect any threats but there was none. 

The old phonograph was turning out a jaunty tune he didn’t recognize as the beam swept the room, illuminating cabinets of chemicals and elements, tabletops of messy notes, an old camera, a tea set long forgotten with its cups on every other surface. A long set of books lined a couple shelves propped against the wall above a desk, two volumes missing from the group.

Ezra dug the old book out of the backpack, taking a few steps to the collection and holding up the book for comparison. Volume 27, meet the family. 

_They wrote it,_ he thought with wide eyes, _whoever was down here wrote it!_

He walked quickly to the table, dropping the book on it and holding the flashlight to the old robot’s chassis. It was a silvery steel, possibly an alloy of some kind, twinged with hints of gold that glimmered. Long trailing wires fed out of it’s head, a majority of them a garish sky blue that draped and fell everywhere like long hair. With it all hunched over it was difficult for him to see anything important. He put one hand on it’s knee and the other on it’s shoulder and pushed with all his strength to get it to sit up properly. Resulting in a heinous metal groan, he got it upright and took a step back to pick up his flashlight again. 

Then it’s eyes blinked open. Orange eyes, all iris and not a drop of pupil. Looking down at him with an expression of disdain, it reached out and pushed him rather violently away. He recovered from nearly falling and looked at it wide eyed. 

"Rude!" The robot spoke in a curt British accent, a voice like warm brass and of a medium depth but masculine for sure. It hopped down off the table with a practiced ease and strode towards him. Ezra quickly turned to run but the robot grabbed him by the arm roughly and pulled him close with a glower. This had been a bad idea.

Tap dancing out from behind a set of curtains a young woman emerged. She wasn’t facing them, instead electing to tap her way to the tune of the old song cranking out, singing along to the musical score rather than the actual lyrics. She spun with enthusiasm, before stopping facing them and letting out a yelp of surprise. Her face fell or at least what he could see beyond the goggles. 

Her hands had two vials of something glowing green, gloves well up to her elbows and a leather work apron for protection. However, she was undressed down to her skivvies, all bloomers and chemises and corsets, with thigh highs tucked into garters. Short heels buckled at her ankles, the old fashioned shape of them evident. She looked down at herself then blushed brightly in the dim light, messy bun of dark streaked hair falling around her shoulders. 

Why hadn’t he thought that they’d still be here? The lights were on, the records going and yet the simple deduction of _occupied_ didn’t cross his mind. 

"Thaddeus, Thad put him down!" She shuffled behind the curtain quickly, trusting the robot to listen. Ezra wrenched his arm out of the robot’s grasp the moment he could, rubbing it and scowling at the bot, who towered over him almost as tall as the Spine except gangly and thin. His eye caught the code engraved into the metal on the robot’s chest, small and inconspicuous. Th4D3S. Thaddeus.

When the woman returned she’d donned some skirts and a messy blouse fastened up to her neck, the chemicals and the gloves nowhere to be seen. She didn’t take off her goggles but seemed unusually familiar. She strolled to the book he’d left on the table and she took it. He went to object, but found he couldn’t as it did belong to her to start with. He’d just… grown attached. 

"Thank you for finding this, I noticed you were taking good care of it," She smiled at him mysteriously. She knew him?

"What is it, what does it all say? I don’t understand the chemical compositions or the formulas! What are the experiments for, what did the photos accomplish, why is he _orange!?"_ He exclaimed all in one breath, gesturing pointedly at the robot beside him, who looked offended. "And who, who are you?" 

She flipped off her goggles and he squinted in the dim light at her, before slipping on his glasses. Nearsightedness sucked. She seemed vaguely anxious and wouldn’t meet his eye from across the room.

"...JJ?" He asked cautiously. She looked just like one of the young Walter Workers that strode with confidence in the floors above, splitting banter with Pira and him on lunch breaks. 

"No!" She said quickly, expression a little annoyed or perhaps concerned, "My name is Emmie Fynne. I’m from the Cavalcadium." 

Emmie Fynne, who looked just like one of the boys upstairs and wouldn’t meet his eye. From the Cavalcadium which had been sucked into Kazooland over a hundred years ago. Who dressed like an old daguerreotype. He might need to sit down. 

Th4d3s walked to Emmie’s side and she directed him to go get dressed and take a seat, all this excitement wasn’t good for that leg of his. He leaned against the wall as he put on pants and tucked his shirttails in. He put the rest of his clothes back on until he looked like a proper gentleman, waistcoat buttoned and necktie in place, but loose. High waisted pants and oxford shoes made him look nearly dapper. 

Emmie looked at Ezra with interest. "I heard on a grapevine, which is none of your concern, that you’d be making your way down here. I didn’t expect you to make it, honestly. But you must be incredibly determined." 

"I am!" Ezra chirped, brow furrowed with the very feeling she had mentioned. "I need… something. I didn’t really think I’d get this far. Or what I’d find when I found it."

"Well, sit down I suppose, we have a lot to go over. Do you like tea?" She went to the teapot to find it empty and frowned. Then went around checking the cups for any clean ones. He guessed she really, really liked tea. 

"I can make a fresh pot, luv." Th4d3s crooned with a smile, taking the pot from her and limping away. 

A clock chimed 1 AM from somewhere beyond the curtain. She placed the book upon the shelf with the others and guided him to the seats outside, turning on some of the lamps along the way. The fluorescent light was still flickering out of the corner of his eye. Ezra sat in the tall leather one that apparently belonged to Th4d3s, as the robot whined disappointedly when he brought out a tray of tea and cookies for the humans. He’d elected, instead to sit at Emmie’s feet and let her braid his wires neatly into a plait that draped over his shoulder, the wires no longer dragging by his ankles but were cleanly lifted to knee length. Emmie poured Ezra a cup of tea.

"Now, where do we begin…”

\-----

The story began, it seemed, with his intentions and ended with his questions.

Why was Th4d3s orange? Simply put, orange matter. What were they doing down here? They lived here, of course, this was her lab. Okay, but why did they live in the bottom of Walter Manor? They came over in the 1980s when the rift was wide and the Walter family deemed her research and expertise in robot building invaluable, since she’d been a member of the Cavalcadium for years. What year was it to her? Don’t know, what day was it to him? How old was she? Rude, first of all, secondly, she was 136, thank you very much. 

How did she get a new type of matter?

She paused at this, crunching into a cookie. He waited patiently for her response and she seemed pensive.

"Lots of time. Lots of energy manipulation. Lots of experimenting. Some travel, both before and after the Cav split from Earth to Kazooland," she told him, "Soul searching too, sometimes it has to find you as well. It’s not just a chemical, it’s an energy, a magick, an alchemy, a whole thing unto itself…” 

"I want to find it!" He exclaimed, "I’ve been working on this for forever!" She raised her eyebrow in amusement. 

"Forever, really, you’re saying that to the 136 year old with 47 volumes of notes?" She jibed, grinning. He flushed blue with slight embarrassment. He supposed she was right. He looked at Th4d3s as she ran her fingers through the loose parts of his braid. The bot’s chin rested on her knee and Ezra bit his lip, thinking.

"I need more time, you think?" He frowned. Even after all this he would have to wait, after this ridiculous journey, after making everything but what he needed, he’d be stuck until it just _came to him?_

"No," she stated shortly, the teacup clinking onto the saucer as she rubbed her eyes and then her forehead. "I believe you’ve worked rather hard. I could expedite the process. I know what a resource I can be to you right now just as the Cav was to me. I know the books upon books I’ve written on the very material you need. But I will need you to come back in a couple of days, I need some time to plan." 

She was right, they’d talked for ages and he hadn’t intended to stay down here for this long. He probably should have, the trek down was nothing but delays. The clock chimed in the distance four times. He nearly yawned.

"I am not looking forward to going up all those floors again. That was… whew, it was an ordeal, I’ll tell you what." Ezra sunk down farther into the chair making it creak and Th4d3s yelped about it. He sat up, apologizing. Clearly the robot didn’t know how to get comfortable. 

"I can help you get back to your room, the problem is getting you back here. Do you still have the maps?" Emmie held out her hand for them and he dug out the pages and one of the many pens. She cleared the table of the tea things and handed the tray to Th4d3s and he smiled up at her, patiently holding it. She began shuffling through them knowledgeably. Complementing the marks he made, she uncapped the pen to add extensive notes and lines and circles or little illustrations clearly bypassing huge chunks of the map.

When she handed them back she huffed, smiling and Ezra read them over quickly. Huge swaths of time were cut out of the journey with secret passageways and all manner of tips and tricks he had yet to discover. 

"Thank you!" He beamed at her. He’d have to come back soon, very soon, he hardly wanted to leave. She beamed back at him before standing making Th4d3s scramble to his feet to get out of her way.

"I suppose this is where I bid you adieu, Ezra," She confided wearily as she took the robot’s arm. Ezra rolled up the papers and stood as well, tucking away the pen. "May I have your assistance, Th4d?" She asked and the robot grinned madly.

"Indeed, my good lady!" Th4d3s replied jovially. They led Ezra to the elevator at the end of the hall and he became very confused.

"Sorry, the elevator’s broken," he informed them.

"Th4d3s," Emmie prompted and the robot’s eyes sparked a bit as he pushed the button, which glowed gold. The big stainless steel doors opened with a ding to reveal a mirror in which Ezra could see his own dumbstruck expression. The damn elevator had been mocking him! The odd pair stepped aside and he entered. Emmie reached around and pressed the Lobby button which illuminated. 

"This will be our little secret, okay? Don’t tell a soul. Goodnight," she smiled and waved as the door slid shut and the elevator shot up with a lurch.

He leaned back against the mirrored wall, hands clutching the railing as a lungful of air escaped him. He probably wouldn’t be sleeping tonight, far too much to think about, and like Emmie, plans to make.

 _Don’t tell a soul,_ he repeated in his head, and thought of Steve, or even Pira who had scoffed at him. He couldn’t say he’d done it. That he’d made it, that Emmie was real, that Th4d3s existed, that he too would build a great robot someday soon. No, he would keep it to himself even if it killed him, he thought to himself as smooth jazz crackled through the elevator speakers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, there's more coming up soon!


	7. The Whole Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some secrets aren't meant to be kept.

When the elevator stopped at his floor, Ezra looked to the buttons to see if the ride back down would be any easier. He scowled upon finding that they didn’t exist. Even when he pushed the buttons that were left none would light up and he seemed to be stuck up topside once again. Exiting, the doors shut behind him and he heard the sound of the mechanical whirr as it dropped into the depths. That elevator was a liar. 

The next day felt like hell. Everything seemed too loud or too bright and his head throbbed lightly the entire morning. It wasn’t until lunch that it’d calmed and he found himself laying on the couch chewing ice. Not a single wink of sleep had come to him from 4 am until his alarm blared at 7 and he desperately wondered if he could set the clock on his phone and sleep for the rest of his break. 

"You’re in my spot, kid!" Pira smiled from above him and he opened one eye, groaning and rolling over.

"The table won’t kill you," he jabbed, listening to the shuffle of chairs as a couple others dug out their food. Pira stuck their tongue out and took a seat, scratching at an itchy gill. The fishperson was eating sushi for lunch and someone pointed it out with some dark humor.

"Isn’t that a little like cannibalism?" JJ’s voice wafted over and Ezra perked up.

"Sorta not really? Fish eat other fish all the time!" Pira speared a roll with a fork as if it were a trident and a few people chuckled.

"Hey, JJ," Ezra groaned, sitting up and looking at the guy with a tired expression. JJ seemed to be sporting a similar one. 

"Hmm?" JJ responded, taking a bite out of his PB&J before looking over. 

"You ever heard of a Emmie Fynne?" Ezra was toeing the water here. It was an innocent enough question to anyone who didn’t know, or so he felt.

"No," the reply was short and JJ took another bite, eyes fixed on the sandwich. It was quiet for a beat too long and Pira looked at him.

"Who’s that?" They asked and Ezra rolled his stiff shoulders.

"Found an old timey photo online of an old lady and it looked like him. Thought it was funny or maybe they were related," he liked to think maybe he was a good liar but he couldn’t tell.

"Oh yeah, how’d your ghost hunt go?" Another of the Workers asked excitedly, putting their fruit cup aside to turn to him. He elected to shrug.

"Nothing turned up. It was kinda disappointing but I didn’t know what I expected," he did his best to look crestfallen. He felt JJ’s eyes on him.

"Yeah, well, there you go, Walter Manor has some weird stuff but no dead girls or strange robots beyond what we’ve already got." Pira went back to their food with mild disinterest. 

"Well, I mean, there had to be _something_ interesting, right?" One of the new hires was hanging around awkwardly, clearly a little concerned about mingling in the cafeteria but not quite fitting into this more experienced bunch. 

"Well, yeah, I suppose. Some of it was cool, but it was mainly more dangerous than anything," he really tried to play it off. He wasn’t keen on omitting information from the story, especially considering how much he wanted to let his secret slip. 

"Tell me about it?" The intern asked meekly with wide eyes. Ezra glanced at JJ, whose gaze turned away as he tucked another post-it note in his pocket. 

"Uh, sure, I suppose it can’t hurt…” He conceded and thought about how best to phrase it all as the other Walter Worker finished eating his sandwich and slunk from the room.

\-----

The second day Ezra had a small crowd of interns gathered at his feet in front of the couch. He didn’t intend for his story to get so popular and worried about the younger Workers attempting his venture with far less experience. 

There was something rubbing his mind in the wrong direction when JJ didn’t show up to the break room, whether he was telling the story or not. When lunch was over he found him in one of the labs during his shift, pausing to ask him if he’d offended him in some way.

"Of course not," JJ replied, looking down a microscope at something trapped beneath a slide. When prodded, he wouldn’t elaborate more so Ezra gave up.

It only seemed to get worse as on the third day he was dragged enthusiastically to the cafeteria for his story. This time his audience was twice the size of the last, a crowding of college students. Steve was there as well and it made him nervous, he knew he’d be somewhat upset at the danger he had unwittingly put himself in. But the people around him wanted to hear and as much as he insisted it seemed they’d get a story from him yet. 

After the tallest of Walter Manor’s tales was wrought upon the crowd, it wasn’t so much a problem when he got quite the lecture. No, he didn’t mind Steve’s concern, not a bit, what he did mind was the stories that followed. 

No less than two groups of curious young minds wanted to attempt his journey, mapless and unarmed with nothing but their wits. A handful of advanced managers was contemplating going down themselves to dispel whatever ill will or unusual happenings were frolicking away to make room and use those labs. And finally, before the sleeping-time alert swept the house and everyone got the next day’s assignments, Peter Walter the Sixth himself made an announcement.

"No one is to go to the lower levels again. The things living, dead, or undecided that reside there deserve peace. There is a reason those labs are closed to faculty. Let. It. Go."

Some of the older staff tried to argue, vie for their skills, for the clearance, but Six was firm with his new rule. The youngest groups made plans in secret, but one by one they dissipated, nothing but a pipe dream and not worth their scholarships or internships, and for the elders, not worth their jobs.

It was back to Ezra, the only one who would continue his plans to go alone, deep into the Manor over and over for the part of the story he never told to anyone else. The girl and the robot. The only part that mattered.

On day four Ezra denied any stories curtly to the disappointment of many a young scientist. He couldn’t spur on any ventures towards his secret anymore. He hadn’t even particularly enjoyed telling it, having to pick and choose was so hard and letting it slip would’ve been even worse. It simply wasn’t worth it. 

At the end of the day, after many disappointed faces, he got to put on his comfy clothes and lay down in bed, ready to get the best night’s sleep he’s had in a week. As he snuggled down into the blankets and closed his eyes with a smile, he remembered something, something very bad, and something very stupid. He needed to return his library books.

This wouldn’t be a problem at any other library, but the librarian at Walter Manor was as finicky as a robot could get. On good days you got persistent passive aggressive messages over the wifi. On bad days she’d hunt you down like an avenging angel coming for her children. And you never knew which was coming after you. 

Tossing off the covers frantically, he shoved his feet in some sneakers and gathered any of the books that were in his room to shove them in a bag. Running out the door, he headed downstairs to collect any of them left in his lab. Nabbing them frantically, he took the elevator back up, his legs feeling like death after more exercise than he’s gotten in forever. 

He leaned against the stainless steel, panting, and when the door dinged he sprinted out and ran down the hall to the library. He dropped the bag on the counter and clutched the edge, doubled over as he searched for his lungs. He did it, he made it, it could renew them and he’d be fine! 

The librarian slowly greeted him and dug through the bag, checking in all the heavy textbooks. Could it go any slower? He stood up, breathing heavily still, looking around. 

There was only one person in the massive room which had been a part of the original Walter Manor. The person who seemed least happy to see him as of late, JJ, was settled in to one of the old wood chairs with a couple of different books pried open, rabidly scribbling notes into a fourth in front of him. 

Ezra wandered over and waved slightly, feeling a little awkward, "Hey…”

JJ jumped, looking startled as he was pulled out of his reverie, an expression Ezra’d seen mirrored on a face that was thousands of feet below him. 

"Oh, Christ, hey, hi," JJ closed the book he was writing in, putting the fountain pen aside. "What’s up?" 

"Returning some books, you know how it is, what about you?" Ezra put his hands in his pockets.

"Studying for my Matter Master certification. I know I’ve got a couple years til my studies are really complete, but I want to get a jump on that if I can." JJ smiled tiredly. That’s why he seemed sleepy the other day, and why he’d been missing at lunch. He was here, studying this whole time.

Ezra’s brow furrowed. He was just so sure of JJ’s identity, of the mirror image that he’d seen, that he hadn’t simply dreamed the whole event. He looked at the book he’d been writing in which felt direly familiar, but too fresh, too new. 

"Do you know anything about orange matter?" He asked pointedly. 

JJ stood sharply, the chair scraping along the floor. Going around the table, he grabbed Ezra’s arm and marched him out of the library, taking him to a nook around the corner and tossing him towards the wall. He seemed frustrated, borderline angry with him, and Ezra winced. JJ was pretty close now, up in his face with a scowl, pointing at him. 

"Look, what do you want from me about this, Ezra? Do you want me to admit it? That I am who you say I am?” JJ took a step back, twisting and running a hand through his hair as Ezra felt a little guilty. 

It could’ve been a misunderstanding, honestly. People look similar all the time, one of them was 136, he could be her grandkid. He’d just been pestering JJ for days when he had a big test coming up, he felt so stupid.

"Yes," JJ said, staring him down with a hand on his hip and the other in his hair, "alright, is that what you want?" 

"What?" Ezra blinked, wait, hold on.

"I’m Emmie Fynne, okay?" JJ spread his arms wide, irritated clearly. 

"But you said-"

"I know what I said!" he nearly shouted and Ezra bit his lip, looking away down the hall. This meant one of two things, the whole thing was a prank and JJ and Pira set up a big fake old lab miles underground or Emmie had pretended to be JJ this entire time, the entire two years knowing each other and he’d known… nothing. 

"This whole time..?" Ezra began to ask.

"Yes, this entire time, I’ve been going back and forth every day from that lab to these just to work on Six’s little projects, per my agreement. I… got here and worked as myself for a little while but people noticed. They noticed I wasn’t aging or getting older. Every couple of years I was fired and came back as someone new, all while working on my own projects downstairs," JJ, Emmie, whoever seemed upset, almost sad or tired, "And every damn time I have to get recertified, can you believe that? You try taking the same test every five years for thirty years!" 

"But why _JJ?"_ Ezra asked, he may have taken this far more personally than he had any right to. They froze in their ranting and turned to him, eyes glistening a little. He’d struck a chord.

"At first these were so I was less recognizable," they tugged on the striped tailcoat, nervously fiddling with a loose button, "I switched groups and labs so I wouldn’t see my friends. It’s easier to stay in the break room so they don’t see me in the cafeteria," JJ took a bit of a shaky breath with eyes on the floor, "I… like it now. I keep the clothes in my assigned room up here. I _like_ being JJ, it feels _right._ More than is appropriate." Their face flushed as they stood up straighter, clearing their throat. It seemed they retained much of their Victorian sensibilities. 

"Oh," Ezra murmured, _"oh!"_ He said again, as it suddenly hit him all at once. She, er, he was like him, sort of.

"Please, don’t tell Th4d3s, he.. doesn’t know, I don’t think he’d really understand. He just thinks I come up here, dressed in my usual and do my work," JJ pleaded, looking shameful.

"I won’t, I promise," Ezra confirms and puts a hand on his arm, JJ looking at him. "JJ above, Emmie below." JJ smiled weakly at his show of solidarity before turning towards the direction if the library. 

"Come down to the lab tomorrow. Use the directions I gave you. And Ezra?" He nodded, "Thank you." 

JJ walked back alone before Ezra realized he needed to go renew those books.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be clear, the reason Emmie/JJ's pronouns keep shifting is that its in line with Ezra's knowledge of their gender. When addressed as JJ, they use He pronouns. When addressed as Emmie, they use She pronouns. Those are their preferences, and They is used for any other instances in between. As well, they're transmasc genderqueer.


	8. At The Core

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With some baggage out of the way, Ezra continues his studies.

When Ezra saw JJ at the break room they smiled at each other. It was a big, secretive smile they shared and to be truthful it was borderline obnoxious. Pira was stuck in between them with a confused grimace as they beamed like the glare of the sun and they were stuck without sunglasses.

"That’s creepy, stop it." They commented before going back to their lunch and Ezra stuck his tongue out at them. It was true though, both felt unusually happy, as if the air had been cleared of smog. He was more than excited for his first sort-of lessons tonight after the sleep-alert spread through the staff. 

Once it had, he dressed and slipped downstairs with little problems, backpack ready to go and a map of all the shortcuts thirty years of employment allowed. The whole of the trip took less than 30 minutes compared to the day’s worth of stairs he’d destroyed his leg muscles on just a few days prior. 

He found himself at Emmie’s door, wondering if he should knock this time, the lamps in the hall at full brightness. He assumed that was for his benefit since it’d been dark as pitch when he’d first arrived. Sharp rapping at the wooden door was followed by footsteps and some quiet shouting that seemed awfully like excitement. The door opened wide to Th4d3s smiling grimly at him. 

"She’s really been expecting you," he stepped aside, allowing him in. He dropped his bag on the ground by the door, the sporty backpack sticking out like a sore thumb in the aesthetics of the place. 

"Hello!" Emmie was practically hopping with excitment, back to her full skirts. She hurried over, guiding him in. "Alright, so I’ve been thinking on what to go over first. I think that it’d be a good idea to go over matter control, the fact of the thing being that the certification in Walter Manor only works towards blue matter, not green nor orange or any other for that matter." She chuckled to herself over the incidental pun. "C’mon through."

She dragged him through the curtain and he was 100% certain that the area behind was not on the blueprints. Just beyond was a living room mixed with a study. There were four shelves of books, two for leisure and the others informational. A cabinet was filled with fine china, while the one mirroring it was filled with chemicals and glowing elements and ores. The desk by the doorway they came through was covered in papers and vials. A large, soft looking couch was parallel from the fireplace, whose chimney went where he could only guess. A few more curtains separated three rooms, two on either and one straight through the center. He guessed kitchen with dining, bathroom and bedroom each. He heard squeaking and looked over at a stack of large cages, blinking in surprise at a wall of mice. White lab mice, scrambling around. They seemed to be comfortable there, though some appeared to be limping. 

Curious, Ezra walked over, looking at them. It was to his surprise, however, that some had prosthetic limbs. Emmie joined him with pride.

"My big project, what I’ve been working on for 30 years. I’m close to a breakthrough! It just needs… a little tweaking." She gestured to one of the cages towards the end. He approached carefully and peered in. The mouse hissed wildly at him, lunging at the glass over and over, scratching its tiny claws but to no avail. Its little eyes weren’t the beady black or eerie red of its brothers but glowed a terrifying green, chunks of fur were falling away as something appeared to be growing over its body from where the prosthetic tail was attached. It’s cage was locked and sealed, safe, for now. 

"Green matter has terrible effects on creatures, you see? I’ve been trying to alleviate that. It’s too bad Sam was the one affected, I’ve found it difficult to put him down so I can continue studies. I was never meant for the clinical approach to these things." She looked a little sad, Th4d3s approaching her side for comfort but instead she stepped away. 

"Anyway, if we’re going to discuss matter, and your robots, I would like to introduce you to Th4d3s’s inner workings. They’re much different than the Walter bots’ and can give you some ideas as to why matter comes first before development." She patted the bot’s arm and he looked a little embarrassed before taking off his vest and shirt. Sitting on the couch he looked up at them, wires tucked neatly to the side. He seemed a little uncomfortable as he glanced away. Emmie gently reached down and lifted his chin. "Trust me," she smiled and he sighed, nodding up at her, correcting his posture to show her robotics a little better. Ezra felt like he walked in on something a little private but he couldn’t figure out why. 

She began pointing out pieces of finely tuned robotics, how they flexed and moved. She pointed out the alchemy she used to make the alloy for his plating, that would be able to flex if you weren’t looking so hard, like skin where it shouldn’t be. She pointed out Th4d3s’s eyes, which were pure matter, its fluctuating power glowing softly, encased in glass. She smiled, telling him how it compared to the Walter robots. The way their cores were pure power, all personality and soul, a balanced equilibrium with the mechanical. It was encased with magick and alchemy, bound to one part as a power source unless the alchemy weakened or the mechanics were unable to contain it. 

"May I?" Emmie gestured to Th4d3s’s core and he pouted a little. She only smiled, like a doctor giving a shot and he conceded finally. "The orange matter works differently than green or blue. Green relies on biology to thrive, needing a true power source or some kind of organics. Orange matter exists outside of its use as a power source. It will completely fill a space it’s contained in, such as Th4d3s’s chassis, like a cat filling a jar. It only takes what it needs and works in tandem when it wants to be used. It displays minor sentience until given form, when it will get full control of its own faculties. You can see why Th4d3s would be reluctant to give that up."

She pushed a couple of panels, small gasps of steam releasing from beneath. The panels slid away from rim of the core and she twisted some bolts free and pulled the core loose, any light and life relieved from Th4d3s’s limbs. It was most unnerving to watch the robot go limp, absolutely empty. However, the metal core which was spherical and about the size of a large softball, glowed even brighter, before hovering out of her grasp. It turned to ‘look' at Ezra with the large glowing center, a soft humming sound emanating from it. 

"I hate being this small," Th4d3s spoke through the orb, "I’m almost the size of Emmie."

She scoffed, offended. "I could bat you out of the air right now and you’d never know what hit you." A laugh escaped the orb as he floated out of her reach. 

"You see," She hopped, trying to catch him, "He still has his mind intact because he has a form," Hop, "If the core was broken, he could attach to his body," Hop, "if the body was broken, he could revert to a core." Hop, "If either of those were ruined, well…” She was hesitant to continue, "I hope I’m at least nearby to pick up the pieces." One last hop and she caught him mid air making a yelp come from the little orb. "HA!"

She handed the core to Ezra, who looked absolutely terrified. He didn’t want to drop it after that dramatic point. She chuckled at his expression, "Believe me he’s more durable now than ever. Just don’t play ball." 

"Please, do not," Th4d3s croaked nervously. 

"See, he actually used to be a wooden cube with a bunch of wires and stuff sticking out of him. I got in trouble in school because he kept bumping into students and his corners kept stabbing people. I made him round after that." Emmie looked as though she could laugh.

"It was only on purpose sometimes," Th4d3s would be grinning if he could. 

"Would you like to put him back together?" She asked and Ezra nodded enthusiastically. Taking his hands, she helped guide the core to the open hole in Th4d3s’s chest. Making sure it was properly centered, the core was tugged from Ezra’s grasp by the robotics, pulled inside and secured. She quickly tightened the bolts back on, and the panels slid back into place, smooth once more. Th4d3s blinked and the glow grew back into his eyes. He flexed every individual finger, testing it out, before smiling brightly. 

"Ta-da," she stood back and crossed her arms. Ezra was bright-eyed when he turned to look at her. He felt excited, he wanted to do this for his robots, he wanted them to wake up under his fingertips and look at him. She felt secured in his interest now, and knew exactly what she needed to do to help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More about Emmie/JJ's project might be revealed later. Th4d3s was a bit of a troublemaker in his youth. Still is.


	9. It's Electric!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone starts somewhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the title of this chapter is absolutely a reference to the song.

JJ shed Emmie’s skin by morning easily, locks all shorn and tailcoat in place when Ezra saw him next, excited expression plastered even harder across his face. He had been trying to do some lab work with his team when he’d been pulled aside. 

"Do you know what the most common matter is for the next 50 square miles?" He asked and Ezra wondered if he was being quizzed suddenly. 

"Blue matter?" He offered awkwardly.

"Blue matter," JJ confirmed, revealing three vials of Walter Trademark Blue Matter. "Guess what you’ll be practicing matter manipulation on?"

"Blue matter," they said in unison, grinning as JJ pocketed the vials safely away for that night. 

Ezra was called back to work by a machine beeping results and it wasn’t until lunch that he saw JJ next with his head rocking softly as he jammed away to some music. It felt strange to see him with a smartphone now, knowing the nature of his life down below. The fountain pen suddenly came as no surprise when he started taking notes next to his PB&J, slipping the latest post-it note into his pocket.

Despite the excitement of earlier, JJ had no time at lunch to talk with him, dead to the world as he worked on figuring out a project. Pira was out too, asleep on the couch with one hand in a bag of fried calamari snacks. It was just him and his thoughts of the bright blue vials that awaited him later. He ate his apple with a determined crunch. 

\----- 

"There are those who experiment with matter and those who manipulate matter," Emmie strode back and forth across the room purposefully, Ezra’s eyes locked to the glowing vials on the large wooden table as he sat at attention. "Those who manipulate matter build robots. Those who don’t must learn." 

She slid three vials of glowing green liquid beside the blue matter ones. The two vials closest to one another seemed to have a reverse magnetism, the liquids inside desperately trying to get away from each other but having nowhere to go. "Matter isn’t inherently evil, only the wicked twist it to do wicked things. All matter is the physical form of the energy of the universe. But let’s not get existential."

Suddenly a lightbulb kit was dropped in front of him and he blinked.

"Okay, what’s this for," he asked, holding up the box. 

"Put it together," she instructed simply.

"I’m not an eight year old, I know how to put together a circuit!" He argued, he had hoped to start playing with the matter already. 

She put her hands on her hips and he groaned before he reluctantly put it together. She pulled up a chair and sat next to him, watching closely. When the batteries were put in and the switch was flipped the bulb lit up, glowing brighter than any of the oil lamps in the room. "Man, I need an upgrade." She admitted quietly to herself and he laughed.

"Okay, now what?" Ezra sat back in his chair. This little science lesson wasn’t like the alchemy or magick he’d hoped for.

"Try to manipulate the energy in the light bulb."

"What do you mean?" His expression was indecipherable.

"Electricity existed before we got a hold of it. It’s an energy we manipulated with physical means before we ever manipulated it with metaphysical ones. It’s essentially a weaker form of matter, an energy of the universe. It will manipulate easier than blue or green matter. Until you can manipulate this, we won’t be touching the more dangerous stuff," she ran a hand through her hair, "See, you’re lucky I’m jumping straight to the manipulation, I don’t have fifty years to waste on you mastering alchemy."

His gaze went from her to the lightbulb and he shifted up in his seat to get a more prepared stance. Okay, manipulating electricity, should be easy. Just like using wires. Except no wires. And no touching. Crap. 

"What I need you to do is turn it off without flipping the switch. When the lightbulb goes out, you’ve succeeded," She waved her hand over the bulb and it turned off, the same again and it flickered back to life. As he mentally prepared himself, she gestured to Th4d3s, who grumbled before going around to the lamps and dimming them. 

"Tip: Don’t stare at the actual bulb, it’ll kill your eyes." She advised, adjusting her glasses. Shaking his arms slightly, he focused on the light bulb, now the main source of light in the room.

He… didn’t exactly know what he was supposed to look for, what would it feel like, what would happen if he succeeded. Would he do it first try? When had it ever been that easy. 

He closed his eyes a moment, thinking. Science was always his go-to. With science came safety precautions, and with safety precautions came ignoring safety precautions for the sake of science. 

He’d been zapped before, nothing deadly but a perk of the robotics job, he supposed. He tried to remember that feeling but all he remembered was the sharp pain of his nerves on fire. He tried to remember the feeling of it’s energy, maybe it was warm... or maybe cold, he couldn’t seem to grasp it. He looked at the bulb and it hadn’t done a thing. 

"What are you thinking about?" Emmie asked, clearly having been watching him. 

"Getting electrocuted," he sighed.

"That’s a mistake most people make. Not the zapping, the thought process." She took his hand, holding it under her own as she swayed it back and forth above the glass. "People think of electricity flowing through them, but you shouldn’t think of yourself as the conductor, think of yourself as the switch." The lightbulb flickered softly with every pass and despite the warm light, it felt like a cool rock sat in the center of his palm. "Imagine putting your hand in water and swirling it around. The water doesn’t feed through you, you control what little water moves from your touch. Now think of it like dipping your hand in the universe and swirl it around." 

She let go of his hand, which he kept moving, desperately trying to keep the cool sensation in his palm as the light continued to flicker under his control.

"I’m doing it!" He shouted, but lost focus and he felt the chill fade. "No, no, no, _dammit!"_ He made a noise of desperation and leaned back in the chair again. 

"Hey, you held onto it to start with and that’s great! You know the feeling now and will be able to recognize it. Control it," She commanded, squeezing his shoulder with a smile. He returned the expression weakly.

"I need water," Th4d3s excused himself from his spot in the corner and went through the curtain. His footsteps fell a little heavier than normal. 

"Okay, try again on your own," Emmie told Ezra, who nodded and sat up straighter, elbows on the table and hands around the glass like a crystal ball. 

\-----

After more than a hour of minor flickering and barely tuned attempts, Emmie’s encouragement became somewhat lazy. There was some grumbled ‘you almost had it’ and yawns of ‘nearly there’ and it was evidence enough it’d begun to get late. 

Ezra wanted to switch tactics but she insisted, he best way is through the flow, the natural flow. So when he was close to giving up he felt that the flow was going against him. The cold stone that sat invisible in his palm wasn’t helping if he was acting more like a sieve and less of a dam. 

He looked darkly at the set up and leaned closer. He’d built this little circuit, he knew the flow. Negative to positive to switch to bulb to battery. Red wire connected to the knee bone, the knee bone connected to the thigh bone.

Okay maybe he was more tired than he cared to admit. Fiddling with the switch, he turned it off. The room got much darker than he was used to now that he’d been staring at the thing for a while, even waking Emmie out of her trance, hearing her shift beside him. He flipped it back on, turned it off, flipped it on, turned it off. What was he missing here, if this little piece of metal did what he couldn’t. 

He looked a little closer, watching the switch fall and the light turn on, tugging it away as the world went dark again. He held his hand over it, trying to gather the cold in his palm as he switched it back on. 

There it was, the chill heavier than ever. He felt it, focusing on the sensation of the energy turning off and the light flickered strongly. _Be the switch,_ he thought to himself, repeating the feeling over and over. Emmie was watching intently as he felt the fluctuation, palms cold. One more try and the light was out. 

He shouted with excitement, the light coming back on. He’d done it! It went out completely, not just a flicker!

"Wow! Okay, c’mon, do it again!" Emmie grinned, leaning on the table with her elbows.

"Okay!" He focused on the switch and the cold gathered and the room was dark again. He held out, the light staying off and he started laughing with excitement. Emmie started cheering. When the light came on they grinned at each other. 

He turned back to the kit, the switch was a weak point of course, he’d simply helped it with doing it’s job, perhaps farther up the wire would be more difficult. He stared intently upon the midlength of the red wire, the cold in his palms swirled and he felt it, he felt it, he felt it, DARK! He held out as long as possible before letting go and light filled the room again. Okay, okay, he needed to interrupt the battery pack now. 

He looked at the two little double-A batteries intently, puddles of cold growing stronger in his palms as he felt all the potential within and mentally tugged. The light went out like he had it lassoed and was reigning it in. The batteries felt like they were thrumming like a tiny heartbeat and he held the power off in the dark room for as long as he could before letting it back on. 

He shared a glance with Emmie who was equally tense as he turned his attention to the light. He cupped both hands around the hot bulb that burned brightly. The coolness swirled in his palm and he tried to spread that feeling to the second hand as well. He felt the energy surge and he knew it was strongest there, being implemented and used. He pulled on it, and felt his own energy working against it like a tightening in his chest. Then, the light flickered and went out, consumed by darkness once again.

"Yes!" He cheered, holding it up as best as he could. It was not unlike an alligator’s jaws, the fighting easy once you’ve got control. He let go and sighed, grinning and running his hands through his hair. He had absolutely done it and boy, did it feel powerful. 

"You’ve done good, keep practicing that a couple times and then head to bed, I want it to become second nature," She told him, standing and stealing the light without a second thought, before turning and leaving the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've done pretty good for BSing this technobabble.


	10. Give Chase

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Perhaps they should've taken a break, but why would they ever do anything smart.

To say that power was surging through Ezra’s mind was the understatement of the century. He kept flexing his metaphysical muscles throughout the day, feeling the chill in his palms culminate but not focusing it on any one thing. He felt like a living EMP, sucking the life out of any of the technology that surrounded him. Except not really.

No, what was really happening was that he would be walking around and make a funny face occasionally. Sometimes a light would flicker if he thought too hard and annoy everyone in the room, not that they knew why it was happening. Tiny things would mess up and he wouldn’t even notice that his coworkers would have their tablets die or that the centrifuge in the lab would stop mid spin before picking back up. No, everything was just broken. 

It wasn’t until lunch that he noticed what was going on, simply because one of the other Walter Workers frantically dug their hearing aid out of their ear and tossed it onto the table as it made a hideous shrieking noise. After cursing a bit, they picked it back up, rubbing their ear and looking at it curiously, concerned. Ezra just blushed and looked away, letting his palms warm up from the chill that’d been pulsing through them all day. JJ nearly spat out his Capri Sun in laughter when he put two and two together. 

His practice, while disruptive, wasn’t the cause of the destruction in the lab a few doors down from the one he was doing his assignments in. A huge contamination had flooded the lab when a chemical got spilled. Despite looking like someone had dumped the world’s frothiest LUSH product in the bin, the foam overflowing was mostly harmless. It did prove tedious when a lockdown was announced until the area was cleared and cleaned, the mess so large they’d have to wait until the next day to get rid of all the bubbly nonsense. Ezra needed to sneak past the cleaning crew to get to the labs downstairs and he turned to JJ for advice. 

That is how they found themselves cornered by Matter Master David in all his mimey glory. JJ was flushed in the face, hiding the clothes he’d balled up to change into halfway down once he got Ezra past the staff. 

_Where are you going?_ David thought at them and they shrugged in what they hoped was an inconspicuous manner. 

"I left some stuff in my lab that Six is letting me use," Ezra bluffed, "I’m going to get it." He pretended he wasn’t wearing a massive backpack for such a menial task. 

_You’re sure about that?_ David raised an eyebrow. 

"Do you want me to show you?" He asked the silent man in a challenging manner and the Matter Master agreed, gesturing his arm for them to show him the way. Groaning, the two headed down the stairs. JJ elbowed Ezra gently and Ezra shared his gaze. JJ looked up at the lights and smiled mischievously. 

Oh no, oh man, he couldn’t. One light bulb was hard enough, let alone all the fluorescents on the floor! JJ prodded him even harder. He looked nervously at him, then at the lights, then at him. Couldn’t hurt, he thought. 

He felt the tingling in his palms, then it grew chilly, then cold, incredibly cold and he almost wanted to stop. The lights flickered and David looked concernedly at the ceiling. Then with a great burst of effort he wrangled the energy and David nearly bumped into him on the stairs as they walked into a wall of pure darkness. 

"Go!" JJ hissed at him and he heard his heartbeat in his ears, the only other sound being their shoes squeaking as they ran, JJ guiding him as he focused as best as he could. Practically tumbling down the stairs, they could hear David’s voice yelling after them in their heads. 

Ezra fell to the ground at the bottom of the staircase, the lights behind them flickering back to life. JJ turned on a dime and when Ezra looked at him it was in awe. JJ was gripping a small ripple in the center of the staircase, hunched over and wrenching with his fingertips. He grunted with exertion as he ripped a hole in the scars of the rift. 

"Woah..." Ezra whispered.

When the rippling faded, JJ sat heavily beside him, panting. They shared a look, the full realization of what they’d be returning to in the morning hit them and they grinned in the way that said _we’re gonna die._

After a minute or so of rest and a handful of nervous laughter, they got to their feet, JJ tugging him up by the hand. Starting their walk south, they headed deep into the Manor once more, following the many shortcuts with only a short pause for JJ to change his clothes and stash them in a nearby lab. 

\-----

That night’s advancements were much quicker than the night before. The light bulb would go out on a dime now, despite still needing to use both hands. Emmie now had him seeing how long he could hold the light off, switching hands to test the weaknesses he had with his newfound power. 

"It’s great you were testing today, but don’t forget to be careful because the energy we are manipulating is everywhere, the entirety of the universe," Emmie chastised as she watched him begin to struggle. He’d been at this for over an hour and while he wasn’t straining his body physically he could feel whatever held the power back starting to twist in agony. 

"What, what about that thing you did earlier?" He stammered out, taking a breath to try and focus, clenching his hands into fists as if that’d give him a better grip. 

"The tear in the rift? That’s a little blue matter manipulation. I’m able to make new ones because I’ve interacted with the rift multiple times, but that’s only because this whole area is weak with scars. I couldn’t do it anywhere else. The same power runs the dampening guns and the Matter Masters and more experienced staff are able to close them, just not make new ones," She rubbed her chin in thought, "I wonder if Pira could open them, since they’ve been through one too." 

"Doubt it," Ezra choked out a response, "they’re not, ugh, studying. For that." 

The energy finally slipped from his grasp like rope and the light bulb glowed so bright he leaned back, almost worried it’d explode with excess power. He rubbed his hands softly, sighing as it faded to normal.

Emmie rested her head on the table, corsets audibly creaking. Ezra rubbed her back lightly and she groaned quietly. "I sure hope Sixer will cover for us, he’s usually been quite good at that, the whole ‘nobody ask questions and I won’t either’ schpiel." 

"Sixer?" Ezra snorted at the nickname.

"Hey, I’ve known that kid since before he was born, okay? I worked with his mother," she scoffed and he realized just how old she really was and the entire thing suddenly became all the more surreal. He looked at the light on the table and huffed, thinking. 

"Guess he’d call you Auntie Em," Th4d3s joked halfheartedly from the desk nearby, reading a book as tubes draped out of him, plugged into the wall as he ran diagnostics for the week. 

"Heh," Emmie chuckled with the same lack of enthusiasm. "Well, tomorrow we will find out if Dorothy has any sentiment for an old rule-breaker like me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note 1: Don't worry about Matter Master David, guys, he just kept running through the rift on loop until he realized that he was stuck, closed the rift tear, and went to bed.
> 
> Note 2: If you think Emmie tearing rifts is like Elizabeth from Bioshock you're absolutely right.


	11. Book of Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's quite a bit of shouting.

Peter Walter the Sixth was a godsend, not even a whisper of the chase was heard from anyone. The only hint it had ever happened was an incredibly bitter Matter Master that ghosted along behind their backs randomly throughout the day. When the pair needed to return to their lessons down below they never saw another person and by the end of the week Ezra and Emmie were passing the energy back and forth over tea as the light bulb sat between them with Th4d3s feeding them cookies. 

Ezra had become curiously intimate with their rooming situation, the fact there was nothing but curtains separating everything didn’t seem to help. It did make the bathroom a little odd but he supposed that they never expected anyone but themselves to be there and even so, Emmie was the only organic being. Each room was in a similar style to the first, old fashioned and curious. There was even a claw foot tub and the kitchen was all cabinets and a table with four chairs despite the lack of guests. Experiments seemed to litter the place and he felt it curiously dangerous but settled when he realized this had been their way of living for thirty years. He did find it interesting that one if the cabinets in the kitchen was covered in unusually modern post-it notes but after being dragged away before reading them, the notes were gone.

The evolution of his friendship with Emmie was interesting. Their secret together and the shorthand adventures they’d been on made them close, their laughter coming in bursts and their excitement at his growth over the week showed promise. It didn’t stop her from being firm with him, however, and as young at heart she seemed it always proved to remind him how much she’s seen and how much she knows. Her young face belied old eyes, jovial but wise. 

Th4d3s was quite the opposite. The old robot was cold towards him, increasingly so, and he felt conflicted over how to respond. He’d be working with him in close quarters and hoped he hadn’t made him angry in some way lest that time become absolute hell. Th4d3s never seemed to treat Emmie any different, all banter and playfulness that came natural when one lived together for over a century, certainly he’d done something, a thought only stabilized by the glances he’d seen the two exchanging, stern and quiet. 

Emmie was always on edge when the robot stood too close to be quite right and she worried how much of the discomfort Ezra could see even through the pleasant company she kept with him. It was like an unnatural bubble had formed between them and she was only half aware that Ezra could feel it too. Th4d3s’s jokes were as teasing as ever but it was like reaching over a gap as she sidled up to the human ever closer. When she’d gotten home one day that week she’d caught him trying to mess with the bulb the humans had been playing with, but she’s told him in the past that matter cannot manipulate matter. 

Th4d3s himself felt quite left out. When his builder wasn’t using him as an example, all her time was taken up by the blue-splotched shortie who’d invaded their little nook. He’d never admit he was jealous, not even when she dismissed his partaking in the lessons as a pointless distraction or how he settled for being in the room with them during their time together, but every little snub directed at Ezra made him feel a small bit better. He wasn’t used to _sharing,_ he never had to be there when Emmie went topside to work, so watching her being excited or enthused by the other human sent a burning through his chest. It only made it worse that she pulled away from him for propriety's sake, as any gap he hoped to bypass felt innumerably larger. 

It was right up until he was looking at them, sipping tea and dunking cookies as they swirled power between them like haughty alchemists with the light flicking on and off in the background, that he’d had enough. Dropping the plate of fresh cookies on the table with a clatter, they both jumped and stared at him, the light turning on with distraction. Orange eyes sparked in the dim light as he puffed steam in frustration, core swirling and glowing like fire. He tossed the small silver tray he’d been using to the ground as they gaped at him like fish and it rolled down the hall. Pointing at Emmie with a glower, she looked at him, visibly shaken. 

"I’m not your butler," he growled sharply, turning and stalking inside. The door slammed and he felt unusually satisfied with himself. 

Ezra and Emmie stared at each other a moment before scrambling out of their seats, chasing after him and bursting through the door. They hurried into the living room where he paced angrily and he looked at them with eyes blazing. Ezra stepped up to plate as she hurried past him to block Th4d3s’s path and cease his pacing. 

"What is wrong with you?" He asked, trying not to escalate the tension there but failing to keep his own startled temper in check, "Have I offended you, or, or made you mad or something!?" He felt blue creep into his face with frustration and a little humiliation as his voice cracked. 

"Yes! No! I don’t know!" Th4d3s yelled, flailing a bit as he grew more agitated.

"Th4d3s, please, calm down. I know you wanted to join us for lessons but you can’t, you literally cannot do it and we need to _focus_ right now!" Emmie tried to explain but her voice began to whine with concern over her creation. 

"That’s not it!" He shouted, towering over her. When he saw how she shrunk from him he looked injured and turned his wrath to Ezra once again. "You! You come down here lookin’ for me, for something new and you find me, then you move right in! You move right in and you take the only, the only person who spends any time with me," he looked a bit sad, clutching at his chest where his heart would be, "y’know what, mate!? I’m not okay, no, sir, not with the trouble-n-strife getting chummy with you while I’m the Tin Soldier, all swept aside," he flailed his hands around to illustrate his point, "Well, I’m tired of it!"

Emmie’s hands were over her mouth in both surprise and shame. She hadn’t known he’d felt this way, her mind had been on the work this whole time. Then, she supposed, that had been the problem all along. "Th4d3s... " She murmured into her palms. He glanced over and in a few wide steps he was in front of her with a touch much gentler than expected for his mood as his slender silver fingers wrapped around her wrists.

"I’m tired," his tone was dark and heavy, "I’m tired of hiding." 

He was so disproportionately taller than either of them that the action was nearly awkward as he pulled her up effortlessly by the waist and pressed his synthetic mouth to hers in a bitter kiss. 

Two hearts skipped a beat in that moment, Emmie’s with emotion and Ezra’s with shock. It’d been _blatantly_ unexpected and he actually had to blink a couple times in surprise as Th4d3s turned to look at him with nothing short of triumph plastered across his metal, mouth turned up in the corners. Emmie had so much color in her face that she was practically glowing. 

"We’re _married,_ genius," Th4d3s jibed and Ezra’s head spun some more. 

It explained… _so much._ The post-it notes that came in JJ’s lunch, the glances they’d shared when they thought he wasn’t looking, Th4d3s’s attitude, the bubble that seemed to appear between them when he was around. And why she kept JJ a secret.

"Why?" Was all Ezra thought to say and it practically made Th4d3s laugh, "I _mean,_ why keep that from me? I wouldn’t judge you for that, especially with what we live with day-to-day." He wasn’t keen to mention more. 

Emmie looked away, embarrassed, "I was… concerned. It would’ve been strange, on Earth over a hundred years ago, and while in Kazooland it isn’t hard to marry a robot, the state of things here always felt… different.” 

Th4d3s clung to her hip now that the cat was out of the bag. It was clear he’d been starving for affection the entire week and it made Ezra grin with amusement. If anything maybe now Th4d3s would lighten up. He was going to speak but choked on a little laughter as Th4d3s literally began crawling all over her.

The robot’s long legs allowed him to drape a knee over her shoulder as he stood behind her with his arms wrapped around her shoulders in the strangest hug he’d ever witnessed. He stuck his black synthetic tongue out at her, waggling it about goofily and making silly noises. Rolling her eyes she shoved him off, smacking his arm with a soft metallic clunk. 

"Stop being weird you gigantic nerd," she smiled but it didn’t reach her eyes when she looked at Ezra. He knew she still had things to hide and keeping them from someone who couldn’t bare to part from her had to hurt and ache inside and he remembered a similar feeling. 

The clock began to chime 2 AM and Ezra groaned, turning to look at it with disappointment twisting his features. It’d gotten really late, especially considering he’d only gotten down there at 9:30. Emmie hurried to the door with him, handing him his bag. When they went through the door she scooped up the light bulb set and passed it over so his confused delight.

"Tomorrow we start on blue matter. I think we’ve gone over this enough that you can take it to your rooms to practice when we move on," a spark of excitement filled her and he smiled softly, giving her shoulder a squeeze and a look of solidarity crossed him. She nodded quietly and Th4d3s passed them, picking up the tray he’d dropped earlier on his way to the elevator. Pressing the button, a familiar golden glow lit it from behind as the doors slid open and awaited Ezra. He wished them a goodnight and they to him as the doors shut and soft jazz floated through his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Th4d3s, that must've been quite an ordeal. I couldn't imagine getting left behind by someone I love so dearly as they get swept away by people and projects. It's almost like a hundred years have passed _oh wait_


	12. Feeling Blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ezra's lessons advance, but he's been neglecting other parts of his life.

Ezra was mindful of his practice as he sat in his lab. He swirled power around genially, light turning on and off with such ease one would think he was simply using the switch. His targeting was getting better now too, no more sweeping electrical failures bothering his coworkers. Not even when he carried the light in his bag the whole day, testing at his leisure without so much as a flicker from the lights above. Improvements were grand and impressive for the short time he’d been experimenting and it was only to his disappointment that he couldn’t tell a soul. 

He wasn’t bad at keeping secrets, he wasn’t even terrible at lying every once and awhile. Eventually some of the secrets he’d been neglecting as of late might come back to bother him soon, but they wouldn’t find him. Not even when he wanted to oblige them. Instead he’d be thousands of feet below ground, learning and aching and wanting to finish what he started where no one would think to look. The experiments below were a hundred years in the making and the experiments in his lab were…

He leaned back in his chair, looking at the two empty robots nestled in a dark corner. They were taking longer than expected. Where everyone else was content to make what already was made he just… couldn’t. A thousand children of blue were wandering these halls and he wasn’t about to add to it. 

His hands were tangled in his hair again, resting his eyes while thinking as the light blinked on… and off. On… and off. It wasn’t until he opened them again that he realized he wasn’t alone. Steve had been watching him from the door and nearly scared the wits out of him.

 _"Christ,_ man, could’ve had a heart attack!" He huffed and rubbed his chest as if he really had his heart stop, "Announce yourself next time!"

"Friend or foe!" Steve mocked teasingly, grinning. "I’ve hardly seen you around lately, thought I’d come check on you in only the third place you usually hide." He fell onto the desk, perched above his companion. "What have you been up to?" 

"Oh, you know, research, experiments," he looked around at the empty desks and counters, it was clear he hadn’t taken time to be there for a while besides to stash some things. He looked at the light that was still blinking on and off in front of him. What had JJ said about it becoming second nature? He let go of his influence on the bulb and it came to life blindingly, Steve flinching.

"Understandable, Mr. Science! Seems like you got a bright idea forming right there," he chuckled, tapping the bulb with a fingernail. Ezra’s phone vibrated and he dug it out of his pocket.

_come down! i have a surprise -JJ_

Early, it seemed. Early, it annoyed. Early, it excited. He stood quickly, flashing Steve a smile. 

"I’ve got to run," his friend’s face fell a little but picked back up to hide it. "We should, I dunno, hang out and watch a movie or something later."

"I got _Sacred Star of Milos_ on Blue-Ray if you’re interested," Steve offered as he slid off the desk. 

"Sounds great! Text me later!" He grinned and followed Steve out, grabbing his backpack and locking the door. He waited for Steve to wave and wander off before hurrying in the opposite direction, deeper and deeper and deeper....

\-----

"Today I was meant to teach you about controlling blue matter, you know, to graduate from electricity?" Emmie began with a proud smile, "I thought I’d call you down early to show you something, well, I probably shouldn’t have started working on it without you, but I was really excited and tend to meddle, especially with a pet project like this," She’d begun to ramble and was flailing her hands around, pacing about the workshop. 

"Okay, but _what is it?"_ Ezra asked, gesturing to the lump of metal parts that was half assembled on the table, and that was a generous description.

"It’ll get you your own matter!" She exclaimed with a passion.

"What?" He tilted his head with a confused look like a puppydog. 

"When it’s done it’ll tear little tiny rips in the scar that covers Walter Manor, not a giant tear like I make, but more like a, a syringe! And you can draw out the matter through the gap on the other side, concentrated and ready for use!" Expressions flittered faster across her face than a computer could calculate, "after all, no new matter can form on Earth without first being in Kazooland! And, and you’ve done so well! You've improved so much, matter will be no problem, I’m certain of it! You remind me of me at your age, intelligent, excited, if not a little desperate," she cupped his face in her hands like a proud parent, grinning with not a little madness, "I set aside some time today to work on the machine as well, so let’s get started." 

Ezra was a little overwhelmed as she fled him and brought the blue matter out. He hardly expected this to take such a turn but it seemed she was having quite the manic episode. That apparently included over estimating her limits as she attempted to lift the hunk of parts herself, Th4d3s hurrying over to help her in her enthusiasm. He was quite touched really, as they struggled the new project of theirs onto a different surface. This unusual pair hardly knew him, yet they’d taken him quite fully under their wings now. His little pipe dream might happen yet. 

He was startled out of his admiration by a sharp clap of the hands as Emmie spun around with a wicked grin.

"You’ve seen David and Bunny manipulate matter before, yes?" Ezra didn’t have a moment to answer before she hustled onward, "It’s quite the sight, once they’ve really gotten warmed up. They use the energy as a tool, as a weapon, as a medium for magick, it's in their very bodies now, it’s poisoned them. It got me rather early too, but I didn’t cling to it like they have, I didn’t have to." She smiled, reaching out slightly to Th4d3s as her fingertips ghosted over his arm. It was the only pause she’d taken in the entire little speech. It was short lived, "See, electricity is hindered, only ever so slightly, unlike real matter. It floats around us, invisible, in the forms of friction and static, and if one wanted to, providing they had the power to handle it, they could strike down electricity from the very air. For example." Th4d3s stepped back and sat himself on a tabletop, crossing his legs and gazing lovingly at his wife as she worked, with a little twinge of fear that he ought to get out of her way for this. 

Emmie stepped back from the table into the wider space. She seemed to be feeling something, closing her eyes and clenching her fists over and over. After a few moments she opened one eye and smiled bashfully. "Been a while," she pardoned before shutting them again. She gave a quick snap of her fingers to feel things out. She began feeling the sharpness in her palm again, cold and powerful. She willed it up her arms like a bunch of tiny knives, not cutting, but scraping, cold and pointed and dangerous. She was every bit aware of what the static shared with her and how quickly it took everything away. 

A sharp zap sounded by her ear and she opened her eyes, lifting her hands from her sides and spreading them wide. The arcing began between her fingers, thin strands of light. It shorted up her arms slowly. A little bolt hit her ear and she yelped slightly, chastising it for biting as if it were a little dog, before focussing. Suddenly a rather large arc grew above her head, from hand to hand like it was pretending to be a rainbow.

Ezra’s eyes grew wider and wider until they were the size of dinnerplates. He wasn’t sure if he should applaud or take notes as her hair stood on end, reaching up toward the line of light. He felt his begin to lift as well, patting it down frantically. 

"Okay, now to put it back down, this part I always found a bit tricky after the initial spark-" The bolt broke all at once, shooting across the room like a loose arrow. Th4d3s ducked in record time, looking at the new scorch mark that was where his head had been moments before. "Oh, I’m sorry honey!" She gasped from behind frightened hands that still shook with energy.

"It’s all right, dearie, you know how electricity loves me! Can’t keep its shiny little hands off!" He grinned out in that charming Dickins accent and she sighed with relief. Ezra couldn’t get his heart to stop beating frantically. They were awfully nonchalant about the incident and he had to keep reminding himself that they’d probably seen worse in their hundred years as science partners.

"We will not be having you do that, it takes years of practice. Besides, Nikola was the best anyone could get at it and even he struggled a bit," She turned his attention to the vials of blue matter. "This is the purest stuff I can get my hands on, none of the recycled gunk that robots spit out, Lord does that stain." 

Ezra’s face flushed blue, and he nodded, focussing more intently on the vials in front of him. It was a thick liquid, color so dense you could only just barely make out your hand behind it. The look was like someone took the very color of the rainbow and bottled it up as pure as rainwater. Emmie plucked the vial from the holder with its fellows and held it to the light before offering it to him. He took it from her fingers and felt a residual spark. 

"Sorry," she chirped, "This is the stuff that makes up the seams of the tear that Sixer managed to close up. When you learn to recognize its edges, you will be able to close tears with your bare hands, like the Matter Masters and people of their caliber. I’m going to assume you’ve handled this matter before?" He nodded quickly as he handled the vial back with haste. 

"Yeah, yes," Ezra managed out. "Of course." And he had, in other experiments, in group projects and times beyond that. It was always unusual, to handle something that felt so alive but so… not, at the same time. 

"Can you describe the energy you felt from it? Have you ever handled it with bare hands?" 

"No, well, yes, and," he paused, "it felt… It felt like… life? Like holding something tiny and alive… but also ridiculously larger than me. ” He trailed off towards the end.

"That sensation might be helpful in getting a grip on its energy. There’s no wrong answers here, no wrong way to do it, unless, of course, it’s needlessly dangerous. Look, here is what you are to aspire to." 

She unscrewed the vial with experience, held it open for a moment to breathe and to sense it. Then she tipped the whole thing right over. 

It seemed, for a moment, the Emmie was going to let it spill onto the ground from her palm, but as it fell to her hand it appeared to gather as if in a wine glass. She swirled it lightly as a bit of showmanship, then held it up to show him. Making a grand sweeping action it was poured out across the air, still, with little swirls as if in slow motion. A snap of the wrist, and it formed solidly as if a see through screen floated before her, a hologram of pure matter. 

"Blue matter is, by lack of a better word, the most programmable. It seeks a purpose, a form. It is as intelligent as you or I, and takes both more and less focus. It will become as attuned to you as you to it. However, it doesn’t seem to hold affiliation as with orange matter, so I’ve noticed, which is downright clingy if you give it reason," she smirked teasingly at Th4d3s who stuck his tongue out at her as she typed absentmindedly into the blue matter. It zipped from under her hand, its shape long and rectangular like a digital marquee at a movie, illustrating a line of poetry ticking slowly across it’s surface. 

"It’s like a well-trained dog, given you’re a half decent trainer, of course," she took it back with a flick, the stuff swirling around her fingertip like a pond ripple. "Blue matter can attune you to mental energies, but since I chose not to become _one with the blue,"_ she had a bit of a mocking monotone, "I do not possess such a skill. I can however, use blue matter like a form of energy beam, and to alter the apparent state of things around me." 

Ezra realized suddenly that he couldn’t move and his hands were spread wide beside him. He looked at them, brow furrowed in confusion, and tugged but they only gave what they wanted and nothing more. It felt quite like shackles held him, and when he looked up Emmie had one eye closed, pointing at him. The blue matter glowed around her wrist, circling in six short blue pillars, like a bracelet of magick. It came to him quite suddenly what she meant by all that. Th4d3s clapped excitedly from his corner. 

"Good show!" He laughed, "No offense, little bean," he directed at Ezra as Emmie lowered her weapon, the matter cooling and coiling around her arm like a snake, docile once more. "I’m just usually the one on the target end of things!"

"Bunny and David’s mimery is merely a trick of the matter," she released him and he rubbed his wrists, not altogether amused, "The mime act is mainly for show, I’m certain. I knew them before all that, not that _they_ know any better. I wasn’t in the room for the incident however, so I couldn’t be certain at the state of their vocal chords. Ask them that yourself, I’m sure they’d be delighted." The sarcasm wasn’t lost on him. 

"So, what should I try for now?" He was eager to move on, to learn and do. 

Emmie grinned at him, holding out her handful of matter like a champagne flute.

"Now you need to take it from me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note 1: Yes, Sacred Star of Milos is the Fullmetal Alchemist Movie. And I totally saw it in theatres, it was great.
> 
> Note 2: Here is where I get into a lot of my headcanons and such for how this sort of this works. I dunno how anyone else feels about it, but do enjoy.
> 
> Note 3: They absolutely knew Nikola Tesla, don't you tell me they didn't.
> 
> Note 4: Emmie/JJ has been studying matter mastery of multiple kinds for over a century, you expect her not to be a little powerful?


	13. Take the Lead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Ezra struggles with blue matter, he grows absorbed in Emmie's tales of the past.

It wasn’t a surprise that blue matter was the real challenge. Even with all his experience, Ezra couldn’t grasp it quite right. More than once he accused Emmie of holding too tight, with a sharp response of "if I don’t do it, no one will!"

She was right of course, he knew he had no hands for it yet. It would be easier to pass it to him, he supposed, than to work with it raw. He could feel the energy of it now though, the way it tingled out of her fingertips as his hands simply washed through it, never quite touching the skin. 

"Oh come on, my hands are getting tired," she jabbed, feet kicked up on the table now, striped stockings visible quite up to the knee. Th4d3s strolled by as she juggled the blue matter around and he plucked the edge of her skirt, dragging it down to her ankles. "Do you know what year it is?" The snark was directed at her husband with a lifted eyebrow.

"Don’t embarrass the boy, luv," he jabbed back, "And maybe some of that leg would be more appropriate."

"I see no correlation to your causation, besides, you’re the embarrassed boy here, clearly," came the reply and she nearly missed it when Ezra finally caught a handful of matter, making her sit bolt upright and scrape her boots from the tabletop.

He struggled with it a moment, feeling hot at first, before cooling to a warm sensation, like water, or holding someone’s hand. Pleasant and lively, the small droplets seemed to be testing him and he held out his hand for more, making Emmie hesitate.

"Before it changes its mind!" He yelped and hurriedly she held it out. Cautious, he reached, more of it floating into his palm. It felt like he was asking someone to dance. The blue seemed to agree and with little guidance it twirled gently in the air. He could’ve laughed. "Look at you…” he whispered to it with a bit of awe.

A conversation, perhaps, or a dance, or a handshake. Whatever feelings it prescribed he undoubtably felt. Emmie held her hands out in case the feeling stuttered and he dropped it. He was unusually scandalized by the idea but lo and behold upon his next scoop he couldn’t handle any more and a lot of it fell into her capable hands, cradling it away. Perhaps he needed a break. He moved it towards her with only his intention, keeping his body still and as it floated over she took it cordially. 

"How do you like it?" An innocent enough question sent him reeling.

"I don’t know it was… nice. Almost too nice, like losing track of time."

Emmie smiled, "Yeah, it's easy to get a bit caught up when you’re not used to it. But don’t worry. All business, no pleasure. Just remember that." He nodded absently. She fed the blue matter back into its vial and topped it neatly. Pulling out a fresh one, she handed it to him. "This one is yours for practice.”

Ezra took it away and put it in his bag. When he turned back to her the machinery Emmie had started on was back on the main workspace and she was grinning wildly. He stepped up to observe it and Th4d3s tossed him a rolled up blueprint which he opened and looked at.

The machine was going to be a moderate size, a wide array of strange things going on inside. "See," she circled to look on with him, "we are going to use the last vial of blue matter as the catalyst for the holes that will allow you to pull matter through it. Since it is made of the same stuff that the scars and tears are, it’ll cut like a diamond drill. The machine itself will use it as both a power source, cuz nothing else would be strong enough, and also refine it until it becomes… sharp is a bad word for it, but you know what I mean. I just need an extra pair of hands for fabrication."

"Yeah, of course!" He agreed, laying out the prints. Emmie wandered the workroom, digging through cabinets and drawers for parts and other bits and bobs.

"Have you ever worked in fabrication, or just experimentation? I know up there we’ve got lots of new tech that can churn out parts in seconds but I mean, really making something from scratch," she asked, putting a wooden box full of miscellaneous parts on the desk.

"Yeah, I mean, I’ve had to do a lot of the fabrication on my robots by myself. Mainly aesthetics though," he commented as he sifted through the stuff, pausing to match things to the blueprints. "I got a lot of the chassis stuff done, how I want them to look and move, some of the wiring, but without power cores…." He caught his defeated reflection in the steel of a mechanism.

"They’re as good as paperweights, yeah?" Emmie commiserated.

"Yeah," he sighed, before looking at the base she’d put together. "Okay, so I can see what you were going for here, and we will need to make sure we have a collection unit."

"Here!" She tossed him a jar and he yelped as he caught it. Looking at it, its mouth was small like a soda bottle but the rest was huge and surprisingly light. "Made it myself, lets screw that in why don’t we." 

He looked at the picture and matched the mouth of it to the metal and twisted it in place. She took the corresponding tube out of the box, put it to her mouth and blew the dust out, before matching it to the other end of the bottle. Feeding it through, she huffed, narrowing her eyes, before slicing it shorter and disassembling the securing mechanism on the other end. It was attached to the new, shorter tube and connected to the port where it needed to be. 

"It was hard, yknow?" She said as she began to struggle with some refraction lights that needed to be affixed into their spots. "In the old days, if you needed something and _didn’t_ have a big company to make it for you, you had to learn how. The Cavalcadium taught me alchemy, taught me blacksmithing, taught me more than basic chemistry." She chuckled when the lights were in place before going elbows deep in the box again for some core mounts and fixtures. "The thought of a… of a ‘woman’ doing any of that back then was nuts. I was surprised Delilah stuck to chemistry, honestly. She could’ve done much more with alchemy had she had the time to learn it." 

There was a pause, Emmie pulling her arms from the container and resting against it. She gazed deep into the contents, but when Ezra looked at her it was clear she wasn’t really seeing it. He stopped what he was doing and watched her.

"...She was good to me, Delilah." Her eyes tore from the box and locked him into a thousand yard gaze, "Treated me like a person. Inspired me. Was kind to me. And I was good to her, too." Something under her gaze spoke of more, spoke of a century ago, spoke of… spoke of a lot of things. He kept forgetting how much she saw, how much she lost. A century is more than most get.

Th4d3s had been staring at her through her speaking and when she’d ended, he approached her with a gentle squeeze of the arm. They’d seen each other through so much time and turmoil, but even he wasn’t around for all of it. His time as a bottle on her shelf, as a core in a box, as a little orb, before finally given form, given love, it was all in Kazooland. After the Cav was split from Earth, after Delilah died, after Peter was driven absolutely mad. He only knew stories, like Ezra knew stories. His were told in the halls of a Ladies Academy lost to time and Ezra’s... everywhere but, with feet firmly planted on the Earth.

"I’m certain nobody has even noticed the lovely little touches of craftsmanship I put on Th4d3s, not since I made him," she smiled sadly and pulled out the core mounts, testing their functionality. "He’s got gold fingertips. They’re more noticeable in the light. And I developed," she dug out a screwdriver to attach the mounts, "an entire new type of silicone-like rubber for his mouth. Malleable and workable, would never grow stiff or crack. Suck it, Edison, you rubber stealing little rat. Anything he can do," she pointed the screwdriver at Ezra bitterly, "I can do better without stealing it." She went back to work, muttering a few bitter words. 

"Th4d3s even has," she crouched to apply the second one, despite the odd angle, "A whole new alloy, alchemically balanced to perfection. Won’t bend or dent or break," he flexed behind her like a bodybuilder to Ezra’s amusement, "but it’s suitably moveable, provides flexibility should he need it, not," she jammed him in the good knee playfully and he limped away, grinning,"that he ever does, because he shouldn’t be getting over strenuous anyhow." 

Ezra’s portion of the project was him matching up parts to the diagram as he listened to her go on like a grandmother with the best stories of the good old days. 

"If only she could see me now," she’d muttered to herself, "locked up in Peter’s basement with a robot all to myself and twenty measures of the green matter that’d caused so much of this mess." 

He looked at her over the table when she finally went quiet, opening his mouth to say something. A shared meaningful glance with Th4d3s and he shut it again. Right now they needed to work, if she wanted to talk feelings, she’d talk feelings and with the expression on her face, she absolutely did not. Instead, he started attaching his little pile of catalogued parts. 

"So about Edison…” Th4d3s offered, sitting aside, and Emmie’s face contorted.

"Don’t you get me started on Edison! That self-righteous little-" The robot grinned at Ezra across the room, clearly he knew just the thing to get her out of a mood. Unfortunately, there was still a couple hours of work ahead of them and her little rage didn’t seem to want to end anytime soon.

"-and on his birthday he gave all his employees pins with his face and the date on it, can you believe that?! How self absorbed can you get to make them wear that _every year?"_

\-----

They had slacked off. It wasn’t their fault, honestly, the machine taking up so much of their energy now that blue matter just… took a back seat, one knows how it is, certainly? No, the next week was less than half lessons now and all workshop. Ezra came home filthy up to the elbows and he was certain that laundry day was _not_ going to be fun this round. 

To tell the truth Ezra liked working on this project a small bit more than matter work. Though he practiced in his lab on the matter, and in his room or the break room on a closed vial of the stuff, he always felt like he failed a trust fall whenever he took just a little too much to focus on and it all came slipping through his fingers. The only consolation was that the pure stuff was easy to clean up, each and every molecule moved by his will back to the glass. 

The machine was different. The machine felt like progress, solid, visible progress. Built by his hands and nearly done in a week, it felt like his goals were getting closer, and with every drop of matter spilled they drifted farther from him. So when the order came to drop the machine and crack down on matter, he was hesitant to comply. 

She was right of course, when she told him the machine would help him none if he couldn’t control whatever power flowed through when they turned it on. She was also right to test him. The history lessons she’d been inadvertently giving him were sprinkled with coaching. So with a half of a vial floating in his palm, she asked him to make a shape. 

It was more daunting than the little dance he’d been performing with the stuff and he wasn’t sure how to do it. Electricity didn’t have a _form,_ nothing but a single job to do. He couldn’t think of a way to get the matter that moved like a tipsy ballerina to act accordingly. He gestured for it to do things, he thought long and hard until he gave himself a geometric headache, until he gave up.

Slouching against the table the little globule floated around his head and he groaned, "Please, just make a shape." 

When he looked up at it next, it was in a lovely little cube. Emmie stood nearby with a smirk that yelled _I told you so_ volumes louder than her words. He looked at it and the affectionate feeling in his palms grew as he beamed sunnily. It was a conversation, a dance, he remembered again. And he just needed to be in the lead.

Okay, he thought then, let’s dance! One, two, three, pyramid! One, two, three, cylinder! One, two, three, diamond! He grinned happily at his successes. All he needed was music. 

"Ezra, think fast!" He hardly had a moment to turn around when a splash of matter was headed his way, and without a second thought he caught it with his mind. He exhaled gratefully as Emmie clapped. "He’s doing quite well, yeah?"

"Quite, quite, young man’s got a right talent, luv, you picked a good one!" Th4d3s cheered on as Ezra mixed the blue matter into one large shape.

"You’ve improved a lot, but what’s holding you back is your own shyness. You describe it as dancing, but you’re so worried about stepping on your partner’s feet that you can’t take control. It has experience, it will follow wherever you will lead," she advised sagely. 

"Yes, ma’am," he muttered absently, turning his attention back to the shapes. He wondered how many surfaces he could make before it was smooth, and the thing slowly morphed into a dodecahedron and beyond as the married couple chattered in the background. 

"Pfft, did you hear that, ma’am?" Th4d3s teased her and she huffed.

"I might be old enough to be addressed that way but I’m still your doting young wife, mind your tongue!" She remarked with a poke to his robotic ribcage.

"Oh, I’ll mind my tongue alright," he said mischievously and she turned bright blue at his comment right up until he grabbed her and pulled her close, licking up the side of her face. She shrieked and flailed, laughing. Ezra gave them a pointed look like a strict schoolteacher, because now he’d lost count of how many sides his shape had gotten and it made him rather sore. 

"Why’d I even give you that thing," she grumbled under her breath at her husband. 

"You know why," he replied with his arms still wrapped around her. 

"Yeah, cuz you couldn’t speak without it," she rolled her eyes, shutting his grinning jaw. 

A rather large splash and the two were soaked to the bone with blue matter but only half as blue as Ezra’s face when he realized the mistake he’d made. 

"I swear, it was only half a joke that you needed to cool down, honestly, I didn’t think it’d take it that literally!" He tried to explain, backing away and.doing his best to gather the matter again nervously. In one giant swipe of the hand, the rest was gathered menacingly in Emmie’s palm from hers and Th4d3s’s clothes. 

"Oh, you’ve done it now, mate!" Th4d3s cackled as Emmie began to give chase, Ezra fleeing into the depths of the house.

"There’s nowhere to hide, _we don’t have doors!”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note 1: Headcanon that the pleasant feeling blue matter gives off is why Peter became obsessed with building robots. the more matter he handles, the less it felt like he was alone. It also explains the robot's ability to make music, they were attuned to dancing anyhow.
> 
> Note 2: All facts about Edison are absolutely true, including the ones about him being a prick.
> 
> Note 3: Whatever history Emmie had with Delilah before Th4d3s was around is entirely up to interpretation. They were classmates after all. And its canon that Delilah was quite the lesbian.


	14. To Top It Off

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unfortunate incident rounds out a fortunate day.

Every once and awhile Walter Manor liked to 1-Up Google as the most employee-friendly place on Earth despite obvious safety hiccups. There were movie nights and pizza days, company get togethers and outings. They provided a place to live and work and experiment in peace, or at least what might pass for peace. But what everyone looked forward to the most was that every seven months, a gigantic tear opened up in the kitchen and an ice cream monster flooded through, to be subsequently torn apart and devoured by the ravenous staff. The vegan members once asked if it came in soy, but unfortunately, it wasn’t their call to make. So Ice Cream Day was borne, both of necessity and nearly universal enjoyment.

It was unfortunate that it came at a rather inopportune moment this year because when that ice cream was gone, it was _gone_ and some of the most exotic flavors in the universe wouldn’t return for a pretty decent chunk of time. Much like the chunks of chocolate in this **amazing** Rocky Road.

Ezra took a swipe out of the pile of ice cream that filled the clean bucket that lined the counter alongside dozens of other buckets. He and JJ were ridiculously excited over the massive ice cream party that had everyone babbling, even the robots who chose to attend. Overflowing their bowls to the brim, they laughed uproariously watching Pira practically shovel ice cream into their own personal bucket. The Kazoolanders on staff were always a little desperate for food you couldn’t get on Earth because when there was the flavor of the very stars of the universe available on a stick of Pocky back home, everything on Earth pales in comparison. Everything but garlic bread, which was a heated debate that had been banned from discussion after one too many lab wide arguments.

So when JJ took even more than Ezra it wasn’t so much of a surprise until he scooped out an entirely separate bowlful of the stuff, cradling them in his arms precariously. He dodged around Six whose tower of flavours grew to be quite impressive as he waited on line for a second serving of Radberry Escargot to top it off. JJ grinned at him and headed towards the door, the splotched Walter Worker chasing him through the crowd.

"Where are you going?" Ezra called over the heads of the other Workers as his friend fled. 

"For the husband!" He simply shouted in return, lifting the second bowl for him to see before disappearing amongst the sea of blue and white. 

Ezra was swept off his feet by an older Worker and Pira, who dragged him to their table which already seemed full. He didn’t pay attention, silver spoon in his mouth to free his hands as the table was twisted, doubling in size. Everyone scooted back into place and he pulled up a chair, joining his friends to chow down on the largest lump of Meteorite Madness he’s had in long time.

\-----

Distraction was fueled in excess, especially since the lunchroom wasn’t in want for people who had missed Ezra’s company. He didn’t sit in the breakroom out of isolation, no, his friends there were proof of that. They all gathered there for the same reason: the lunchroom was _too damn loud._ With every Worker and their mother jammed into the place it was cacophonous. He didn’t mind it incredibly, he laughed just as loud and joked with no loss of fervour. So when he finally realized JJ was still missing it’d been a very long time. 

He’d stood and looked around, not that the throng of uniforms would provide a decent marker. Thinking back, he knew quite well that JJ’s past acquaintances were probably frequenting around and he’d hate to be recognized in such a public manner. Not to mention that he’d just gone home with a gift of ice cream for his spouse. They were probably sharing as he spoke, making eyes at each other like they’d been since last lesson. 

Something was off, he could feel it. Everyone came back for seconds, _everyone._ Didn’t matter if you were robot or organic, Ice Cream Day sat your ass firmly in the lunchroom until that ice cream was gone. 

"Hey, put my leftovers in the break room fridge, I gotta go do something," he clapped a hand on Pira’s shoulder, skirting around all the blooming tables. Pira tried to object, but shouting back over the crowd had become impossible. 

The path down wasn’t exactly second nature but he only made a wrong turn once to his credit. It could’ve been a lot worse since he didn’t think to grab his maps first. He didn’t have time to waste so he felt heinous about every second-guess he made until he finally reached their floor. 

Ezra was stopped dead in his tracks. 

It was dark again, even the flickering light was out and provided nothing for his eyes to grasp on to. The only thing that had any light glowed green. 

His heart was in his throat and his feet picked up the pace as he headed towards it, "it" being Emmie, crouched low and crying. Tiny hitches in her breathing was the only sound besides his feet on the carpet as he approached. 

Quickly waving him away, he took a step back, now having a better view of what was glowing. The flesh on her hand was bubbling and giving off an eerie hue as bright as a glowstick as she grasped it by the forearm and hissed the pain through her teeth. He could see the sharp splinter of bright green rock candy sticking out from the base of her finger.

"What happened?" He crouched near her, as close as she’d let him get.

"The mouse got out. I don’t know how but it got to Th4d3s. I had to grab it to get it off him. I, I didn’t use gloves there wasn’t any time. It got away and he kicked me out so I wouldn’t get worse," her voice cracked a bit as she gripped her forearm harder, knuckles going white. "Please, help him!" She looked at Ezra tearfully, both spouses ready to risk their lives for the other. And his too, apparently.

He gave a solemn nod and she slid the key along the floor before leaning back against the arm of her arm chair with tears staining her face. He took it carefully and unlocked the door, slipping inside before shutting it behind him firmly. If a green matter _rat_ was running around, like hell was he going to let it have its fill of Walter Manor.

It wasn’t that the room was different, it was the atmosphere. The lamps were low and a dim light purveyed over everything. Ezra saw the two ice cream bowls on the center table. One was half empty and the other was slowly melting onto the table top. He scooped up the half empty bowl and scraped it into the trash can, swiping the inside clean with a rag before tossing the scrap of fabric aside. A little forethinking on his part as he wielded it, eyes scouring the ground for the scurrying creature as he breached the second doorway. 

The light was on in the bathroom so he headed there quickly, Th4d3s’s voice erupting through the eerie quiet.

"I, I to-old you to go ge-get help," the staticy sound was enough to alert Ezra something was very wrong. When he rounded the corner, Th4d3s was slumped over on the toilet lid, the thing making loud clunks as the mouse tried to escape from under his weight. His success was ill-gotten it seemed, as green rock candy crystals were growing up his arm from his wrist as glowing light came from beneath the seat. He looked tired, the orange of his eyes fizzling weakly. Surprise hardly registered on his face when he saw it was Ezra.

"How can I help?" Ezra asked hurriedly. Th4d3s was about to open his mouth when the mouse exploded from the toilet tank. The robot screamed and fell into the bathtub, the mouse rounding its little head on Ezra. 

It was wet and angry, the green matter crystals growing out of it crunching when it’s little joints moved. Despite being so small it was terrifying, like being face to face with the Black Plague except worse as it’s little glowing eyes pierced him with a hiss. He barely dodged out of the way in time when it lept at him, slamming into the wall in a shower of cracked green rocks. 

Slipping out of the bathroom, he stopped while it regained it’s footing. He sincerely hoped his lessons were about to pay off as he shouted at it to follow him. It seemed willing to oblige as it scurried towards him, but he held up his hand for it to stop and it paused as he felt the sensation of pop rocks tingling in his palms and up his arms as he fought with the matter encrusted rodent for control. 

It was strange, playing lion tamer with a mouse. The battle for it’s small mind between him and the green matter that had sliced its way into its brain stem would’ve been easy if he’d had any practice coming to grips with the spiky feeling of the energy which popped and crackled in his palms uncomfortably. He barely had a grasp on blue matter let alone this downright painful little element. He didn’t like it, not one bit, it was so different from the cold, sharp electricity and the lukewarm, liquid blue matter. It felt like acid was tingling along his skin, but he focused even harder to keep from getting distracted by it. The mouse was thrashing and squealing desperately, clawing at its head as he attempted to reprogram it with what little he knew of blue matter’s ways, if that helped at all. He slowly approached the mouse as it flailed and cupped the bowl around it, snapping the edges to the ground and letting go of the energy as he stepped on it to prevent it from getting away.

He rubbed his palms free of the terrible feeling as he looked up at Th4d3s who stood in the bathroom door. The poor robot’s arm hung limp at his side, green growing over it slowly. 

"The-Ther-There’s a big… thi-thing under the s-sink…” He directed weakly and he wobbled over, falling to his knees and holding the bowl down as the mouse struggled against it. Ezra nodded and ran to the kitchen, looking under the sink and pulling a stainless steel container out by both handles, carrying the heavy thing to the main room. Dropping it beside the robot, he pushed the apparent button on the top and pulled the lid off, opening the suctioning tube that looked like an incredibly high tech crock pot. He looked inside at the goop with a grimace.

Th4d3s slid him control of the mouse-bowl now, proceeding to shove his whole arm in the murky liquid. His eyes sparkled brightly and he grumbled irritably as the matter was sloughed off inside the pot. Shaking off the excess messily, he was immediately on his feet, stumbling towards the door as Ezra kept his weight on the bowl. 

When he returned Emmie was in his arms, the bubbling skin extending up above her elbow now with the sleeve rolled up as far as it’d go. He placed her next to the sludge and she rolled out of his arms to submerge her own contamination with some desperation, like aloe spread upon a burn. Turning her face away she attempted to block her stoic tears from falling into the solution. She wouldn’t meet Ezra’s gaze as she waved Th4d3s to her desk. 

"Tool drawer," she croaked and he seemed to immediately know what she needed. Bringing back a scalpel he passed it to her waiting hand as she drew her arm out of the murk, the bubbling of her skin having finally ceased. "I only had to do this once before…” Her voice was a scratchy murmur as Ezra looked on concerned. 

Shaky hands aimed the scalpel at the splinter that pierced her paling skin. Before she could act it was interrupted by silver fingers deftly taking the little knife back from her clearly incapable hands. She looked at Th4d3s with dark green bruises under her eyes as Ezra held her shoulders steady. The robot smiled at her wearily and held her hand still, leaning over the liquid as he flayed a small chunk of poisoned flesh from her finger, the matter going with it as it sunk into the dark depths of the bucket. She only cried out softly as the sharp pain throbbed now, hardly even a quarter of what she’d been feeling before. 

Blood swirled with the purple chemical as she drew away. Th4d3s ran a thumb over her palm soothingly before standing and getting a towel. He wiped the slippery mess off his arm first before ever so gently cleaning it from her puckered skin, the bubbles deflated and no longer glowing. She took deep breaths and Ezra let her squeeze his arm to near-painful. Now that the shock of the thing was wearing down he felt about ready to cry, the whole event a catastrophe. As Emmie breathed heavily, interspersed with a sharp gasp when Th4d3s cleaned her new wound, she looked at her student.

"Next lesson… We will learn about green matter," she said with a dark expression, stern and determined. 

Though frightened at the prospect of a repeat of this incident, he just nodded silently, sniffling and looking away embarrassed as he quickly wiped his face. Emmie conversed shortly with her robot and he quickly retrieved her protective gloves. She slid one on, nodding to Ezra to lift the bowl. When he did so she snatched the mouse before it could fuss and dropped it unceremoniously into the pot of chemicals. Sealing it back up, she glowered angrily at it. 

"Drown, you little-" she let out a couple of choice descriptors to Th4d3s’s abject horror. "I’ll take this to the bio-hazard disposal unit. Later." She tossed the glove aside and slumped against Th4d3s, lying across his lap. 

"Hey, Ezra," Th4d3s muttered quietly to him.

"Yeah," Ezra choked out in response. 

"If you’d please bring the first aide kit from the bathroom, I’d be grateful," the robot requested and the human nodded, shuffling off to the bathroom. When he returned, Emmie’s arm got wrapped up rather cleanly as she draped her legs across him. It was less than pleasant, however, when Th4d3s filled a syringe with an unknown liquid and gently lifted her sleeve above the bandages, just a bit higher. She squeezed Ezra’s arm with fresh fear, eyes shut nearly as tight as her grip. He never thought she’d have a fear of needles and though it made him just a little queasy to watch her get the shot into an unusually visible green vein, it probably paled in comparison to the struggle she went through not to fight it. So when the syringe was empty and Th4d3s put a funny band-aid on the site and rolled her sleeve down over the new wounds, she relaxed tenfold considering that she’d been tight as a spring moments ago. 

The three lounged in a pile for a little while as her pale skin grew to the warm lightness that Walter Workers are accustomed to, the dark green bags under her eyes fading only slightly and some of the veins disappearing from where they were visible. Dazed and concerned for each other they just sat and allowed themselves to rest after such an ordeal, the container sitting at their feet. Ezra wearily wondered what happened to his ice cream back upstairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note 1: The ice cream monster of SPG fame had to come from somewhere right?
> 
> Note 2: Radberry Escargot is probably amazing, so is meteorite madness.
> 
> Note 3: Had the green matter not pierced their skin, they probably would've been fine honestly, but as soon as it got introduced to their bloodstream did it start killing their flesh and contaminating their blood. That's why Th4d3s had to cut off the part that was pierced and not just remove it before treating the wound.
> 
> Note 4: She had to cut green matter off a classmate in school. The Cav banned green matter after the incident.
> 
> Note 5: I don’t know how it went from an ice cream party to everyone miserable and lounging on one big pile. Honestly, I barely remember writing this, and it was out of order with the rest of the story. Consider this chapter one of a kind.
> 
> EDIT: It was probably because of the ice cream nightmare I had after eating a pint before going to bed, I realize.


	15. Second Thoughts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ezra's concern and JJ's nonchalance of the incident bothers each other.

When Emmie found the hole that was scratched secretly into the bottom of the reinforced cage she threw it to the ground with an anguished scream. It served no purpose besides leaving a slice in the woodwork and making her feel just a little better. The mouse had covered the hole with its bedding and her own sentimentality over the little creature was nearly her downfall. There wasn't much they could do about it now besides reflect. After her anger subsided she tore her notebook off the wall and began writing furiously, her bandages starting to turn a little red where her hand was now missing a little of itself. Th4d3s urged Ezra to leave.

"Will she be okay…?" He asked at the elevator.

"She’ll work through it, she always does…" He wrung his metal hands as the door opened and the human crossed the threshold. They didn’t share any more words beyond concerned faces as Ezra was sent shooting back up to the Manor above.

When he emerged from the elevator and it left him behind again, the halls were empty. He’d almost forgotten it was Ice Cream Day and everyone had abandoned their posts. Not wanting to go to work again, his hands shook a little as he headed back to the cafeteria, no. He stopped, changing course, the break room. 

When he arrived he checked the fridge, seeing his bowl of ice cream in there labelled with a piece of masking tape. Digging it out, he mentally thanked Pira, before pausing and looking at it. No, Pira had eaten it. They just replaced it all before putting it in the fridge. If he was in the mood for it, he’d’ve laughed. Instead he sat at the table. He felt a little numb as he scooped the ice cream into his mouth, staring at the wall across from him. 

"What happened to _you?"_ Came Pira’s voice behind him. Not right now, please, Ezra begged some unseen force but Pira fell into the seat beside him anyway. He probably looked like a truck hit him. Continuing to take on ice cream like a boat taking on water, he just shook his head. Pira’s wacky grin fell a little and they reached out, rubbing his shoulder with a webbed hand.

"Hey Pira, what do you do when something bad happens but you can’t tell anyone?" He asked weakly, before filling his mouth with more frozen treat. 

"Something happen?" They asked and he fit them with a look, "Oh, yeah, right, can’t tell anyone got it." The Walterfish seemed pensive for a minute, the air filling with a rare silence while they thought. 

"Well, depending on who it happened to…” They spoke finally, "I’d try my best to stay strong, and think long and hard over who you tell. Try not to get in over your head, cuz if something is dangerous and could get you hurt or someone else, it’s never worth a secret, yours or anyone else's, _however,"_ a sideways blink at him, "if it is someone else's secret, and something bad happened to them, you can’t always put your ideas first. If you’re worried about them it’s usually a good idea to talk to them about it before going over their heads. Especially if the secret is big enough."

Ezra nodded his head slowly with the spoon sticking out of his mouth. Pira smiled their wide, sharky grin and stood, going to the counter and grabbing their keys which they forgot when they dropped off his ice cream. 

"See ya around, kid."

\-----

The next day left him a wreck. He was terrified of handling green matter later, having seen what it could do to a mouse let alone a person. JJ still had deep green bags under his eyes and how no one else noticed it Ezra could only guess. Willful ignorance, perhaps? 

A few green veins were still peeking out the neck of his tailcoat and he scratched at them lightly. He seemed to be doing better, Ezra watching out of the corner of his eye as he unwrapped his sandwich. He caught a post-it note for the first time, Please take your medicine, I love you- Th. 

JJ knocked back two capsules of something with a gulp of Capri Sun, shuddering weakly before digging into his sandwich and shoving the note in his pocket like he’d done all the others. The bandages around his hand caught Pira’s eye and they shared a look with Ezra, before they both looked to their lunches and chose not to address it. 

It wasn’t his secret to tell, he thought to himself as JJ ate. His friend had done this sort of thing before, surely they had a fallback plan. The medicine he just took must be helping, the shot they had prepared in the first aid kit, _thirty years of research._ And yet he couldn’t let go of the young face contorted in pain and tears he’d seen. Until JJ caught him staring some time later as they walked the halls together did he snap at him in his thoughts.

"Stop that," he commanded, and Ezra blinked, turning his head away, "I know."

"Of course you do, you know everything," he muttered as they reached their part-ways. 

"Not everything, clearly," JJ replied, scratching at his bandages as they stopped.

"Are you… are you going to be okay? Is there someone I should tell about this, about the," he lowered his voice, "accident?" 

"No one who doesn’t already know, Ezra," his voice softened slightly and he took a step to him, giving him a hug and crushing the reports Ezra was carrying, who melted into it tiredly, all the worry seeping out of him. JJ released him with a smile that never reached his eyes, as usual. 

"Don’t worry about it, I reported to, ahem, management and they helped me take care of it. Th4d3s has me on blue matter inoculation capsules to counteract the poisoning and the…” he held his bandaged arm lightly, "well, it’ll heal, won’t it? I’ll get better, and you’ll learn how to control it. Despite all this, I still believe. Matter is only wicked when wicked ones control it." He nearly balked at the faith his teacher had in the very element that poisoned him. 

"I’m afraid," he confessed, "I don’t want to work with it, it’s... it’s dangerous, and it hurts!" He remembered the crackling of acid that had spread up his arms when he dared to try and wrangle the green matter. 

"And look what happens if you don’t learn to control it. You wouldn’t have been able to stop what happened, not with none of the training I’ve been helping you on. We aren’t playing snake charmer here, Ezra!" JJ chided him, and he went to argue but he lifted his hand to silence him. "Meet me downstairs tonight. Green matter will not wait." He turned on his heel and strode away before he could hear any more protests. Ezra watched him walk out of sight before going in the opposite direction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another short chapter again.


	16. An Education

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ezra is fearful of his next matter lesson, but he needs to get over it.

Green matter looked like hell. 

Well, only to Ezra, to anyone else green matter looked like rock candy doused in a busted glowstick. Innocent enough, just not... healthy. But to the young Walter Worker it felt like fear. Staring down the vials that replaced the friendly blue matter was like looking a tiger in the eyes. Waving her fingers in his face, Emmie snapped him out if it with a grimace.

"Hey, Ezra, focus," she chastised and he looked at her. He hadn’t noticed he was shaking. "It’ll be okay, listen to me." He swallowed and nodded, looking at her. 

"Green matter comes in a few forms," she gestured to the matter on the table, "Liquid, crystal, and… this." She pulled on her gloves and held up the third vial. It was murky, partially crystallized and partially liquid. Despite her stance on the material she was clearly slightly repulsed by the stuff. "The other two are pure matter. Fresh from the mines, or rather, kept since the mines in the Walter Vaults. Nobody knows why the family kept it, confiscated in the backlogs of their history. I only have it for my work. I got lucky they have faith in me, in my project." Bitterness flooded her voice. "This matter, however, is from the Elephant Wars of 1897."

Ezra felt like his heart went from a drumbeat to a complete standstill. Really? This little thing, this was a chunk of history! He may as well not be standing there if none of that weekend war happened and here, here was a relic. A relic from the wrong side. 

"Do you know why the matter looks like this, Ezra?" Emmie asked and he took a sharp inhale. He was beginning to wonder if he really did have heart issues, or if this whole adventure was just a little more than he bargained for.

"No," he coughed out, when he realized it wasn’t rhetorical. 

"People, Ezra, it’s full of people." She looked sad or disappointed but he only felt wildly ill.

"Are... are you serious?" He looked at the vile murk floating in the half liquid, half crystal mess.

"Yes, unfortunately," placing the matter back in the rack with the rest, she looked at him with a more serious expression than she’s ever had in these lessons. "I don’t know how much you learned about the Elephants or about Becile’s work, considering our history lessons and the limitations that the Manor puts upon how we learn and study. They don’t want another one of him with his foolish ideals, not while his family is still runnIng around out there, full of power and greed." She tilted her head in a moderating way, "Ehh, minus Norman. He’s nice." 

The Becile couple that lived in Walter Manor wasn’t the strangest thing, not after all that had happened in the past. Not after the explosion that’d decimated the Walter family line. Not when Norman denounced his family and elected to stay with Wanda, with all her quirks. Emmie thought they were lovely. Other Workers thought they were a little distracting, and didn’t particularly enjoy being mistaken for maids on the day-to-day. 

"The Elephants and some of his other war machines needed pilots. The green matter devoured them and their corpses. There were few survivors, but those that lived were poisoned even when it ended. Green matter was still able to be used after being tainted with their bodies, however. Scientists would come from all over to scrape them out for it until Peter batted them away and collected it. Nobody cared for the wasted dead. It was terrible." She seemed rather angry over the whole thing, "It was pointless violence, all of it. Pointless violence by pointless men." 

A few deep breaths were needed to calm her. Seething now, she closed her eyes and he noticed the veins of green that had been fading were throbbing lightly under her skin. Her gloved hands were spread across the table and she seemed to be counting, tapping each finger lightly. When she was calm her gaze practically struck him. The veins seemed to fade again and she breathed in measures. He realized she was focusing this entire time, controlling whatever had been slowly poisoning her the day before. But her focus was back again and Th4d3s looked at her over the edge of his book just in case she needed help. 

"The matter I use for my project needs to be pure because it cannot have medical contamination. I believe in the inherent good of the matter of the universe and the potential for healing with green matter is huge. One day I will have human trials. But for now," a sigh escaped, "I have my mice."

"Human trials? But, what about what happened..?" Ezra’s concern was well founded, all things considered and she couldn’t argue.

"That was… my fault. I let my disappointment and hope cloud my vision. Sam the mouse was my favourite and showed promise and when he crossed from potential to overwhelmed I had tried to treat him. To make it better. Eventually I tried to make the crossing pleasant, but even in that I put off his death until he, he wasn’t him anymore. He was just matter." She turned to Th4d3s and he put down his book, hopping off the table. He left the room and Emmie went to the doorway, slipping off her gloves and tossing them aside. "Sheila, please, Th4d3s," she asked and from the other room Th4d3s handed her a mouse. Ezra was fully prepared to take a good step back as Emmie approached the table, cradling the tiny nervous creature in warm hands.

"Nope, no, put it back, no," he shook slightly, reaching behind him as he took a nice big stride backwards.

"Ezra, stop," he paused, staring with his heart in his throat, "This is just a mouse... Her name is Sheila. All my mice are missing limbs or tails or things like that. Stuff I replaced. God, I hate mouse traps, they’re vicious things. Tear apart tiny lives when you could just move them out or get no-kill traps. It’s a mess. But look, I helped them!" 

She smiled and held out the mouse, showing off the hind leg that she replaced with a tiny metal limb. Despite himself, the science drew him close. The leg moved so naturally it was surreal. Tiny Sheila didn’t even seem to notice it wasn’t hers as she scurried around, no more feral or overgrown than either of the humans. It felt… wrong. Too strange to see the tiny glass bead glowing with green light, from what he could only guess was the smallest matter core in the world. 

"This could revolutionize so much!" He told her but it was clear she already knew.

"Blue matter limbs and other prosthesis are good and all, they hook into the mind, they move, but they move like machines. They are programmed and sometimes unnatural. Those I’ve spoken to feel a painful disconnect between them and their limb, rightfully so. But green matter has a dangerous past. It’s known for consuming, for growing, for killing. But in my mice, it’s healing. Sure, it needs to be kept in check every day, I’m always observing, always making sure they are in control. They get small doses of blue matter to keep the green at bay. And they work in unison, the limb growing on them, a part of them, and it becomes a balance. No color changes. The blue isn’t enough to make them like us, the green not enough to lose them. Each of my mice is on a different dose. Sam… Sam was on a dose that was right all the way up until it wasn’t. The green matter became too powerful, and devoured the blue no matter what I did. Then it literally grew on him. But Sheila’s been a good girl, yes she has!" 

Slipping the mouse a bit of food, she gave her back to Th4d3s for him to put away. The empty section of shelf was visible from where Ezra stood and it haunted him from the slit between the curtains. He could only imagine how Emmie was coping, and when Th4d3s slipped back past the curtain, he caught a glimpse behind and knew just how she felt. A brand new wooden door covered their bedroom now, not a velvety moth-eaten curtain. Something to feel secure. She tugged her gloves back on and stared him down. 

"Green matter isn’t elephant armies and it isn’t feral mice. Green matter is lonely. It won’t dance with you. It won’t play with you. But you cannot let that block your control. I’ll teach you to use both forms of the stuff. With our little scare it’ll be less than easy for you, but you’ll have to trust me. Do you trust me, Ezra?"

Ezra swallowed dryly and nodded. When that wasn’t good enough for her, he hesitantly agreed, "I trust you."

"Good. Now go suit up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The whole Blue Matter versus Green matter debate has always seemed very black and white, despite the inherent lack of monochrome. I alway saw potential in green matter to do good things. It'd figure men in power would use it for weaponry, don't you think?


	17. Learning Curve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's loose.

The gloves that went up to Ezra’s elbows were a little long fingered for which Emmie apologized. They actually belonged to Th4d3s for when he helped, so if they fit a little odd an urge to ignore it quickly followed. 

As usual, Emmie was to give an example and urge him to follow but Ezra could only find himself on the other side of the room, back pressed firmly to the door. He was wearing his glasses to assure her he was watching as best he could but a little something inside him bid to flee still. She let him watch from there, though, humoring his nervousness. To be truthful she was fighting to keep her own hands steady but she wasn’t about to let him see that. The amount of times she’s had to overcome her own fear to work on this project was considerably unfair. She loved her work, believed in the good the project would do, and yet she gripped the vial firmly to hide the tremors in her wrist.

"Green matter grows in its crystal form. It needs to be in that form to devour organic material. All my prosthetics work by keeping it in liquid form, where it dispenses the energy it’s absorbed over its lifetime. That’s why Becile Technology is dangerous when it breaks down, and it _always_ breaks down. It will crystallize immediately and eat up the entire organic structure within, before basically becoming one big crystal lump. As well, it is unusual in that it will also eat other matter, which is dangerous. Do not let it eat other matter at all costs. That’s why I was so worried about…” She trailed off, gazing down at the vial and Th4d3s looked away, knowing she felt guilty for any harm that may have come to him. 

"The matter is easy enough to manipulate into liquid form, keeping it flowing will prevent it from solidifying. But there’s also tech that will keep green matter cores in a liquid state without the constant flow so that’s also good. Controlling liquid form is like… melting stained glass. It’ll be slightly difficult to get it to do what you want but the end result will be lovely as long as you have nice intentions." She uncorked the vial and poured it out in her hand. As before, it never touched her glove. Floating just above, it looked more gentle than he knew it was. However, in her palm rested a marble of blue. As the green matter continued to swirl through the air in a figure eight, she held up the little sphere.

"This is a non-dissolvable capsule of blue matter. It keeps green matter in liquid form for storage because green matter is always trying to separate from blue. For some reason they cannot coexist in one space. Putting blue matter in with green matter will make them go to opposite sides of the bottle. It’s strange because no other matter does this. Just blue." She put the marble back in the vial and tucked in the rack for now. 

The green matter spread into a sharp polygon shape, it’s light folding over and over until it made one smooth cone. She pointed it at shelving unit as it spun and glowed brighter. "It easily takes on a weaponized form, as shown right now. I could release a bolt of green matter and it’d infect its victim. It is a rather self serving material and will take that opportunity to start eating away at the wound if not collected immediately." 

It’s energy soothed itself into a warm glow and it curled up in her palm like a poisonous lizard. Dumping it back in the vial she quickly capped it, before pulling out the crystallized one. She opened that one as well, the rocks that poured out hovering above her fingers. Taking her other hand, she seemed to pull and stretch the material until it became thick and syrupy. The action was like pulling taffy, going faster and faster as the matter liquidized before his eyes until it flowed as easily as water. It stayed in that form as long as she kept it moving, relaxing once the job was done.

"Taking it from rock to liquid is fairly simple. You have to grip what makes up its most basic form and pull it apart, until it’s stretched so thin it no longer has it’s original structure." She sighed, looking at it. Apparently resigning herself to something, an expression was shared with Th4d3s and he left the room.

"I’d intended on showing you when we got into this lesson, but now… You’ve seen what it could do. I cannot simply leave this aside though, it’d be lax on my part. I cannot shield you from it. If anything for your safety." When Th4d3s returned, he handed her a plexiglass beaker and some food. He seemed more disgusted by the orange than he did the raw meat that lay beside it.

She picked up the orange and gave her husband a look, who tried to put up an innocent front. "You just want to be rid of these things, don’t you?!" Emmie groaned and put it aside, "Fine."

Ezra stepped up a little at this part, curious, but kept his hands tucked behind his back. She deposited the green matter into the beaker to crystallize. Then, she peeled the orange. Just one slice of the fruit made the crystals grow sharp. Even the rinds were eaten, the rest of it making it grow even worse but Emmie’s hand was hovering over the beaker so it never crossed the edge, no matter how it tried. Pulling her hand away, she clenched her fists in preparation. 

"I’d recommend you step back again, Ez, this might be a mess," she suggested but he was at the door before her sentence even finished. 

She held up the chunk of raw meat, giving him a notifying nod, and dropped it in the beaker before stepping back. The crystal grew over the edge of the glass well before the meat touched it, like a ravenous animal reaching desperately. Emmie’s hands were up, controlling just how far it’d go and yet as the rocks grew over the beaker it felt like useless endeavour. It felt like matter brought them in over their heads, that it truly was the energy of the universe but in its most terrifying form. Hungry. Angry. _Hunting._

"When someone knows how to control green matter, you can slow or even stop it’s growth. Attempting to stop it can be deadly if one isn’t properly trained and I wouldn’t even recommend it to Becile’s interns," she lectured calmly as she swirled her hands as if wrapping a rope around for a better grip. Clenching her fists and tugging firmly, the rocks stopped all at once, freezing in place as they spilled over the table, eeking outwards. They didn’t grow any further and it was clear that it was Emmie’s doing. 

Th4d3s brought her two bottles much larger than the vials and placed them on the table carefully. She began stretching the green matter, turning it all to liquid once again. Separating the contaminated green matter and the new pure chunks seemed to be an easy task as it began swirling in the air, overgrowth broken away from the tabletop and eased off the beaker. Clean matter found it’s way in one of the bottles, a small amount fed back to the vial to crystallize once more. Her robot capped both for her as she turned her focus to the liquid matter holding broken down flesh and rotting fruit. The smell was terrible and all consuming. It made Ezra feel sick. 

When it was gone and in the second bottle he breathed easy. She put a marble of blue in both if them before lifting her fountain pen to the labels. Emmie seemed to pause a moment, looking confused and glanced at Th4d3s who smiled softly and tapped each of the stoppers, muttering quietly to her as she began to scribble information and dates. She handed them to him and he went to put them on her shelves in the other room. Emmie turned to Ezra.

"Green matter works as a power source because it’s nearly constantly absorbing small amounts of energy due to the organic particles in the air. That’s also why if you’re going to store green matter, never put it in a full bottle. The air inside will have organic elements and it’ll slowly grow over time. Always label new growth. Always put the date to calculate growth. Always label what you fed it, because if it accidentally crystallizes and begins to feed again, you need to know how much growth to expect from the incident. Fruit doesn’t make it grow much but meat and such will make it explode as you saw. Always wear gloves, doesn’t matter if you want to get a better grip _always wear gloves._ The only reason that green matter used to be edible is that it was first generation from the mines. Human digestive juices are able to break that down, but impure matter is still feeding and can grow faster than being digested and will overtake the body, killing you. Do not lick matter. If you’re interested in watching it dissolve, spit on it, but don’t lick it," she thought a moment about what she was forgetting. "Wear goggles, but that’s a given. The only reason we’re not is that we needed to be more aware of what was going on around us and the periphery on these are a mess. I also had full control but when you practice they will be required." 

She scowled at the vials of matter as she pondered what more to say. Going to the wall she pulled out a notebook and flipped it open. Returning to the table and taking a seat, she began to paraphrase.

"When it comes down to it, green matter doesn’t have many raw applications like blue matter does. It’s too stubborn…” She paused, skimming, "It’ll be a weapon… It’ll make a good power source… It eats… Ah! It’s preliminary medical use is based off the idea that it connects to whomever is steering the initial robotics, such as the elephants from 1897. They needed that person as much as the person needed them, but the amount and controls went highly unregulated and became their downfall. In the end, the hope is that a highly regulated dosage of green matter will use its energy to latch onto the host, but remain weak enough if medicated. Development of medicine…." The sound of flipping pages filled the air as she searched for more. "Blue matter counteracts green matter… will keep it in check if it is absorbed in the bloodstream. Keep the green matter at bay. Etc." She shut the book and put it back. "As you can see the dosage isn’t quite right yet, but it seems I’m getting somewhere." 

"So," Ezra finally spoke, "Do you want me to practice with this stuff… now?" He sounded nervous and she smiled cordially.

"No, not right now. I can see this was a bit rough on your nerves. Instead, we’re going to have tea and discuss the machine." Emmie put back the green matter, cabinet doors shutting with snap and she locked it tight. Pulling off her gloves, he did the same, handing them over with the work apron. She put them aside in the cubby and parted the curtain for him with a little bow. He went through, sinking onto the couch as she let down her hair. 

The same way he couldn’t figure out how she went from short to long hair every night, he never quite figured out why she was eager to discuss the machine and dole out cups of tea. It wasn’t until she sipped it slowly did she break the bad news.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Emmie is doing her best to educate but keep his feelings in mind. If he doesn't get this out of his system, the green matter will be IN his system instead. She's just looking out for him.


	18. Green Around the Gills

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keep it in check, boys.

Ezra was devastated to find out they wouldn’t be working on the machine for a whole week. It was what he’d been looking forward to the entire time, especially in the wake of the first green matter lesson. He’d attempted to object but her reasoning was sound. 

Despite his trepidation, they needed to focus on the green if he was ever going to learn it. Keeping him distracted with a different project might become detrimental to their health, should he stop paying attention to the material that crackled up his arms unlike any other. He hated it, frankly, and the matter seemed to respond in kind. It took him much longer to grasp than blue matter or even electricity. However, once he held on it didn’t seem like he’d let go easily. It was like the stuff grew along his skin now and he made sharp polygons in no time. By the end of the week they twirled and swirled just as it had with blue matter but with the emotion of a restrained beast. One false move and it’d be free to devour them as it wished. 

Emmie was impressed but she’d known the whole time he could do it. Th4d3s had told her how he’d fought at the mouse’s brain for control. That was a rather advanced technique in itself, where he simply could’ve mentally grabbed the matter and flung the creature around the room to his whim. But he’d done so quite naturally which was a mark of the skills he possessed. She figured he’d simply needed to get over the hump about it, concede to the fact he would have to in the end. It was as with all green matter workers. It overpowers you or you overpower it. There was no in between. 

It became a battle of wits, almost. The energy could feel his weakness at first, the nerves that shot through him. Even Emmie told him that. But eventually it became frustration, which turned to annoyance. When anger peeked over the horizon the tides turned. His emotions overcame the stubbornness of the rocks and they were yanked from her influence. They floated for _him_ now and he wasn’t happy, excited, or even grateful. No, he stayed a bit annoyed. 

He felt their structure, he knew what she meant by pulling it apart. And after another day passed he stayed bitter towards the green gunk. The next time he took it, he turned it to liquid. It took much longer than it had for her, the pulling taking a lot of mental energy but he wasn’t giving up. Everything about him felt like fire and it slowly bent to his will like a strongman bending a pipe.

Liquid pooled in the air, glowing as if innocent. When it spread he only needed to clench his fist, brow furrowed, and it would become a little sphere, cowering before him. Emmie grinned. She knew this feeling. The feeling of control, being unable to give anything to the matter, not like blue, orange, or any other color. No, a strong hand was needed. A strong will.

What she’d teach him next would be to _relax._ It was hard to remember, after being so firm with the stuff, that the need for that control shouldn’t follow you back. She knew how it could. She’s had it happen. 

It was funny, almost, to see it in the breakroom though, before she saw that lesson to completion. No, his bitter looks and unusually demanding voice seemed to startle everyone they encountered. Some were nearly impressed, as if he’d grown a backbone. Some were frightened, or more likely, worried. Some asked if he was angry at them or if he was alright. It was JJ, though, who took to escorting him through the halls on this day, playing diffuser for all these encounters. He would promise later it was only partially for his own amusement. 

When the two came across Pira, the fish seemed bemused at how easily Ezra brushed them off. However, it only began to feed a dire need to annoy him even more. JJ had been stifling giggles the entire time as Pira’s attempts returned stern glances and evil eyes with anything that would normally set him off or bend him into peals of laughter. It was until Ezra seemed about to snap that JJ shipped him back to work until they could meet again in the levels below.

When Ezra became quite aware of his behavior he was shocked. Emmie was still grinning. She had been entertained the entire day because of it, so when it became time to teach him how to get back to his regular old attitude he was annoyed at her too. 

Taking his hands, she sat with him a moment and had him close his eyes. She rubbed his palms with her thumbs softly and talked low, despite how he expressed his irritability. She told him how to breathe, and how to think and how to unfurrow his brow. How to listen to his heartbeat and to let it go. By the time she was done he seemed a little tired. 

"Sorry," he murmured and she ruffled his hair lightly.

"It’s okay, buddy. It happens to all of us." She gave him a couple cookies and smiled. "Eat this and we will continue the lessons." 

He nodded, returning the expression weakly. The realization that all the green had been fueling him made him shudder and even know, what she must be coping with… Ezra hadn’t forgotten how the green veins throbbed in her neck, made her look angry and she’d wrangled them expertly for days now. Was she still fighting? Was she still taking her medicine? Was she feeling better? He only filled his mouth with cookie, keeping an eye on her bandages.

By the next day, he was able to return to normal all by himself. He no longer felt tired because of it, no longer irritable either, just a little more powerful than before. It tingled in his fingertips constantly like lightning and he almost laughed. He knew what lightning felt like now, and truly, the comparison didn’t even match. Sparkles were vastly different than cold, but he couldn’t get distracted by the sensations, not when he needed to focus. 

On Saturday Emmie let him test his matter manipulation on a spare prosthetic. He injected the tiny limb with energy, sending it spasming to life. She applauded his newfound talents but he could only hope to be through with the stuff soon. Especially after how he’d seen it hurt her. 

He’d caught her quite by accident changing her bandages upstairs earlier. Ezra hadn’t meant to have the run in with JJ then, the first aid area was usually quite abandoned and he was picking up a box of Band-Aids for a lab partner. Propped up on the cot with tailcoat half off, JJ had been cleaning the surreal landscape that covered his arm. They’d both blushed very blue when they’d caught each other and neither really knew why. The boys turned their gazes away, JJ tugging the shoulder of his tailcoat up over his binder a little more.

"Does it hurt?" Ezra asked him, pulling what he came there for out of the cabinet and pocketing it. He didn’t turn around.

"A bit," JJ admitted, cleaning the pocked, loose skin. He seemed embarrassed by the wound and it was understandable. It felt like a mar, a bit of ruin. "I hope it goes back to normal." 

"I’m sure," Ezra spun finally, looking at him, "it’ll heal up in no time, right? You’re taking good care of it!" 

It didn’t seem to comfort him. "Yeah. Besides at least I’ve got my _sparkling_ personality if it doesn’t!" There was a sharp catch in his voice as he tried to force the sarcasm. 

"Are you… Do you need any help?" He offered softly, walking over. The injury was strange, he hadn’t seen before but some of the skin was peeling heinously from where it bubbled, underneath bright red and painful looking. 

"No, no," JJ tugged the half-a-tailcoat higher but when it brushed the arm it sent a violent wince through him. "I’ll be fine, go back to work!" He smiled weakly despite the edge to his voice. The veins Ezra’d been worrying over earlier were slowly working their way back down the injured arm but it gave him little comfort. 

"Are you sure, I mean… it looks like it hurts, I could always try-?"

"No, Ezra. I’ve got it," his voice cracked a little higher than his usual Emmie pitch and his face flushed as he cursed himself internally. "I mean, I’ve got a salve I made, I’ve been putting it on, it should… help, it’ll help," he’d cleared his voice, dropping it and not looking him in the eye. "Besides, I know where it hurts, where to avoid and stuff. Just leave it be."

Ezra had nodded and left to give him a little extra privacy as the guy licked his wounds miserably. 

"After all, what’s another thing to cover up from the husband, yeah..?" Was the last he heard of JJ for the rest of the day until he got to their lab that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They both need to learn to ask for a little help sometimes, I think


	19. An Act of Trust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sacrifices sometimes have to be made for the greater good

Like that one final you can’t wait to fail, Ezra was never so happy to stop messing with matter. He could’ve hugged the machine when Emmie swept away the cloth covering it. Only wishing he locked the material in the cabinet himself, he was already up in arms to pluck the nearest wrench and bang on with the project. Despite not sharing his enthusiasm, everyone seemed rather relieved to put the green matter away and move on.

While they split their time working on the metal puzzle, all but figured out but just needing assembly, Emmie quizzed him on his matters. Often she’d keep him working with one hand and spooling matter around with the other. His ability to manage this matter would be key for this project, and she wasn’t about to let him slack off while she pondered. 

They’d started getting quite a bit done and it seemed like the machine was reaching the home stretch. There was only minor pauses when they found the need to fabricate their own parts, the shelves and boxes somehow lacking in their collection. Emmie had also begun taking time to show Ezra how to care for her mice. He would feed them and they would change their cages together while they took breaks. She even taught him how to medicate them, tiny droppers of blue matter dripped in their mouths. The green matter check ups made sure nothing was growing, that the prosthetic was working, that everything was right as rain. He even learned their names. Together, the whole ordeal was fifteen minutes. They’d become quite a team. 

Ezra arrived one day to find a couple of journals spread on the table. 

This wasn’t altogether unusual, as she often left them out when she worked frantically, using them as reference. This was different, as Emmie perched beside them, waiting for him to arrive. She wrung her hands, smiling, and watched him approach. 

"Today we’re going to go over something a little different," she began, gesturing to the books. He gazed down into one of them and found himself looking at some rather old photos and messy notes. One of the photos, he was guessing, was of Th4d3s in his original wooden block. The wires weaved in and out of the wood and metal as a hand held it before the lens, glow causing a glare on the film. 

"Are these your old notes? Your _really_ old notes?" He asked, picking up the book and flipping through the pages.

"Yep, and I wanted you to see how I applied my notes to my matter work, so go on, keep reading!" She hovered in his peripherie as he read, occasionally pointing at things and explaining. "The reason you often need to know matter manipulation before you complete a project or build the robot is that different energy types need to be fed different ways. I keep the green matter flowing like veins as seen in this later book," she pointed out photos in a different volume, "and it’s driven by the will of the living, as it gives off energy like oxygen to different parts of the body. However there is also strictly core applications."

She jumped to a different book and pointed at some photos. "Blue matter is an energy in itself so it can rest easy in a core to power everything else but can serve other functions if need be, like solid holograms. Here, though," turning the pages in the volume he held, she ran her fingers across the paper, "Orange matter can run as a core but will often… spill over, of sorts. It’s not as containable as other units. You’ll find that it doesn’t need to be, either. It is quite content to do what you please so long as it agrees. You should see Th4d3s when he has a tantrum, he’ll completely shut himself off and ball up in his core. It’s really annoying honestly, especially if he sits somewhere to block me. He becomes a glorified paperweight." The robot laughed from a nearby table but he didn’t deny it.

Untucking a loose photo from the later pages Ezra looked at it contemplatively. A self portrait of Emmie and Th4d3s, dated about century ago. She beamed excitedly, a little blurry with movement while the robot seemed bleary eyed and confused. He realized that it was when Th4d3s was just built and wasn’t used to having a body yet, but Emmie and her little photo clicker were by far too enthused by her success to let it go undocumented. 

"Ah! Let me see that!" She plucked it from his fingers, grinning, "I remember this, I was so excited, Th4d3s had just woken for the first time and was stumbling about the lab back home like a drunken toddler!" If the robot could blush he would’ve, standing and taking the photo from her. 

"Come now, you wouldn’t appreciate if I showed your baby photos, would you, luv?" He teased, stuffing the picture into the book and taking it away. 

"You don’t even have any! Besides, you were built fully grown, it’s different!" She objected as he gathered the rest of the notes and put them away.

"You know what I mean!" He scoffed.

"Should I take photos too?" Ezra asked.

"Well, you can take photos much easier than I could, so I’d recommend it. Watching your development in the future… it's amazing." She broke out in a wild smile, "How about we take one right now!" 

Ezra blinked, "Really, why?"

"I love taking pictures, and I’m always forgetting to mark down memories. C’mon, I’ve got my camera over here!" She dragged him over to the large accordion camera on the wooden tripod on the corner. It’s flashbulb was large and delicate and made trembling sounds as she pulled it away, gesturing for him to stand by the wall.

Th4d3s joined him by his side and Emmie checked over the plates and the bulb, making sure the old contraption was still running. Ezra struck a couple poses, adopting the somber expression he’d seen in many an antique picture. 

"Oh, don’t do that!" She told him as she ran over with the clicker and took her place beside him. 

"What, why not?" He replied, dropping the look.

"There’s enough pictures of dour old people out there. Smiling won’t kill you!" He nodded as she and Th4d3s turned to the camera. Putting on a pleasant expression, they all did their best to hold very still as the flashbulb went off, and after a few minutes they felt it was safe to move. Emmie shuffled away to take care of whatever film nonsense the unusual old thing took and Th4d3s relaxed. 

"I always worry my smiles look forced but that's just ‘cause it’s rather hard to make a robot seem natural, innit?" The automaton grinned at him before going to help with the camera stuff, Ezra shifting out of the way as they shuffled the tripod back into place. 

"No more distractions!" Emmie announced as she dusted off her skirt. Taking that as his cue, Ezra went to the machine, but Th4d3s and Emmie hung back. They seemed to have some silent conversation between them and he looked, curious.

"Actually, Ezra, we wanted to take a little break from that, just for today, and try something… different," Th4d3s explained and the Walter Worker had a strange feeling.

"What…?" He asked, narrowing his eyes a bit.

"Well," Emmie began, "Th4d3s offered to let you try out orange matter manipulation… We’re only going to go over it today and you won’t be taking any to practice. We just want you to see what matter that isn’t developed on Earth feels like." 

He smiled excitedly, "Awesome, where is it then?" He looked around for some vials or bottles like they’d worked with for the last couple of weeks but there was none on any surface. 

"Uh, the only orange matter we have is… kinda…” She looked at Th4d3s who knocked on his chestplate with a dull ‘ting!'

"Oh…” Ezra paused, worried, "But… I don’t want to take him apart, won’t that hurt?" 

"We won’t be disassembling him or anything, just pulling the energy back out. He’ll still be the same old Th4d3s when we put it back in, don’t worry about that!" Emmie tried to assuage this fears as the robot sat upon the table. He approached and looked concerned but she only gave him a soft smile. It was clear she was still convincing herself of the same things. 

"Orange matter isn’t programmable like blue matter, remember? All its data and personality comes pre-packaged, as individual as you or me," she told him as she turned to Th4d3s who had taken to folding his shirt and vest to the side, almost seeming to make a little nest. "You ready, Th4dybaby?" 

He nodded a bit, "I think so, you ready, luv?"

"As I’ll ever be!" She smiled and they shared a little kiss before stepping back. 

"And here... we…. go."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAve you ever been to Edison's Labs? Photograph everything.


	20. Orange You Glad?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This whole chapter feels like a hug.

The core was out, Th4d3s’s chest a gaping hole as the little glowing orb sat on his pile of clothes next to him. The metal was smooth and shiny as Emmie guided what was left of the robot through the proper shutdown procedures. Once the humming ceased and he could no longer communicate with them, she began to pull. 

Orange wafted out of the center like sand caught in the wind. It swirled through her machinations and picked up in a gust, emptying it’s shell. She smiled as it blustered around her and laughed as the material glowed like fairy dust, nuzzling against her skin. She gathered it together into a cluster, flowing lightly around her hand. 

"This is what pure orange matter looks like. It’s beautiful, yeah?" She smirked, "but maybe I’m biased."

She wasn’t, he agreed as the glowing particles danced in the air. It was a sight to behold, ethereal and magickal. He almost wanted to reach out and touch it himself right then and there. 

"Anyway, now that he can’t respond to anything I say, I’ve got a confession," She held up the orange matter to face her, "Th4d3s… Your sugar cookies are kinda bad. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you that earlier." 

As Ezra broke into laughter, the orange matter made a motion of surprise and she tugged it back to keep it from floating away. 

"Oh, come on, I said I was sorry! I ate them, didn’t I?!" The orange matter stopped resisting and she laughed a little, smiling at her student. "Onto the lesson portion of this."

She held the matter up to display her actions as she began to smooth her hands around the cloud, compressing it together into one bubble, "Orange matter generally comes in a dust or a sand. The granules are perfectly round and vary in size but are larger than regular sand and visible to the naked eye without any aid. They often glow as you’ve seen. What I’m doing here is that I’m turning the granules into one blob, which is soft and malleable. It can flow like other matters in liquid form in this state but is slightly thicker where those are more like syrup and water." 

The matter swirled around him softly with her direction and it glowed with familiarity, shining in the lamplight. It was unusual to see his friend reduced to a shimmering honey but he was sure it wouldn’t be the least strangest thing he’d see.

"It also has a solid form, like green matter. It has a very different structure though and looks more like amber," she brought the material back and took it under her influence. It hardened to stone, warm colored and dense. She let it drop into her palm, solid and thrumming with energy. Holding it out to him, Ezra took it, running his fingers over the smooth surface. It still glowed dimly but he could also see through it and somehow, light refracted off it as well, reflecting his face. Emmie took it back, picking up a cloth and gently buffing the surface. 

"What is unusual is that when polished, orange matter looks similar to brass or gold, so some people have even made objects or jewelry out of it. Imagine Aladdin's lamp, or the charms that are on mummies wrappings. Sometimes they were considered gems of gods. Unfortunately, they can barely control any of themselves as a solid. It’s all rather neat, isn’t it?" She handed back the stone for him to look at and it shone like polished metal. It was unusual and beautiful all at once, stunning him. 

He cradled it in him palms for a moment and was terribly enthralled. It was beautiful and lovely and took so many forms. From stone to liquid to dust, even to robot, to his friend. His friend, who had been helping him, Emmie, who’d been teaching him. They brought him to this point. He could do so much now that he almost felt like a whole new person. Blue matter and green matter and electricity, soon orange matter too. It all bent to him now. And he could only thank them for these weeks they spent together, but even that felt like empty words.   
A tear fell onto the stone as he held it and he quickly wiped it away, laughing as he sniffled and rubbed at his face. Emmie reached over and cupped her hands around his, smiling gently. 

"You alright buddy?" She asked and he nodded, giving her a watery grin in return.

"I just… I couldn’t thank you enough for.. for everything. This is just so amazing, all if it, y’know?" Ezra explained quietly. She gave him a hug and he returned it, careful of her bandaged arm. When they parted she took the stone back, stretching back to liquid, then to dust. 

"You don’t need to thank me, not until we get your robots up and running, got it?" Passing him a handkerchief, he nodded and wiped his face clean under her supervision. "Now, let’s get you playing with this, why don’t we?"

It was easy for him to take control because in all honesty it wasn’t him doing the controlling. When the dust passed from her hands to his with a gentle tug it was as warm as the sand of the beach. Urging it to move he realized everything it did was more of a suggestion than a command. He offered it a twirl and it spun, he requested a shape and it took it. It was clear that it was doing it of its own accord and he could very well feel Th4d3s’s presence in the energy of the stuff, including his wacky, playful attitude. Especially his wacky, playful attitude.

"I don’t know how I ever managed to contain this silly creature," Emmie wondered teasingly as Ezra guided the sparkling lights to frolic about her head. "I had to break down an old artifact to get the material for him and he was so boisterous once he was free I’m surprised I could bottle him at all! Let alone keep him on my shelf." 

She laughed as she ran her fingertips through the glimmering dust. Ezra pulled and the matter danced away. Experimenting gently he pressed it all together, a glowing cloud of light, and he pushed and pushed until it was one once more, smoothing out. He dipped his finger in and it stuck and swirled like honey until he willed it away. 

Turning it to stone was a little more difficult, the orange matter naturally resisting the form. He probably wouldn’t like it much either if he was the one being squished into rock like a fossil. Eventually he eased the transition and it grew still and he dropped it in his palm excitedly. Rubbing with the corner of his uniform it shone bright gold. The two scientist shared a happy excitement at his little successes, bubbly and loud down below where no one could hear them. 

Th4d3s didn’t seem content to stay as an oversized doorstop for much longer and Ezra was happy to oblige. He prefered to watch the floating, shimmery dust fill the air as he worked in unison with it.

"Would you like to try installing him back into his core?" Emmie offered and held out her hands. He could feel them working together on the matter now, their energies and instructions flowing and mixing seamlessly. 

"If you’re sure, I haven’t done this before…” He only felt a little worried over the fact.

"Of course, shall we?" She took his nod and ran with it and they pushed and pulled in tandem, easing the material into the core. He felt it lock in, pulled slowly from his grasp by the machine as the energy was absorbed and booted it up. When the last trickle of dust was encapsulated by the little round core he felt it leave his influence and it’s influence left him like a breath of air.

His skin cooled as Emmie helped Th4d3s bring the core up to speed again. He hadn’t realized the glow of orange matter could be felt both inside and out until the entire room grew dark. It was unusual and he missed it but there was only so much he could do. He could see why Emmie enjoyed Th4d3s’s company now though and wondered if the glow permeated her very person, in every smile she shared. 

She offered him the core and he placed it into the robotics as he remembered from last time. It clicked in and was wrenched from his hands as the mechanism took over, bolts replaced and panels shut tight with a little hiss. 

"Are my cookies really that bad?" Were Th4d3s’s first words back and it sent them into giggles. 

"No, honey, not bad. You just need to use more butter," She gave the robot a kiss on the cheek to welcome him back and wrapped a scratchy wool blanket around his shoulders. "Go do diagnostics before you get to baking though, alright?" 

Th4d3s tested his limbs, flexing his hands and arms before attempting to stand. She guided him to the corner of the room draped in tubes and machinery as she set him down and hooked him in through little ports on his back. 

He snuggled into the blanket and settled in for the tests, kissing her hand before she returned to Ezra. Offering a seat in the living room, he gladly accepted. Smooshing into the couch cushions beyond the curtains, he relaxed a bit and Emmie joined him. 

"How do you feel about your chances now?" She asked as he kicked off his shoes and pulled his feet up, curling quite comfortably like a cat.

"Better than ever," he replied, "I can only hope the matter I meet is as forgiving and comfortable as that experience was." 

"I’m certain you will. The right kind of matter comes to the right kind of people. Care for some tea?" She offered and he nodded drowsily in the dull lamp light.

The clock chimed three when she returned to find him asleep. Setting the tray on the coffee table she grabbed the quilt off the back of the couch and unfurled it around him before finding her place on a nearby footstool. Taking a sip of tea, she ate a few of Th4d3s’s cookies before making a face and taking an even bigger swig of tea to wash it down.

Emmie and Ezra are drift compatible #confirmed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ezra and Emmie are drift compatible #confirmed


	21. Good Morning, Good Morning, To You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not everyone wakes up, not everyone sleeps.

Upon waking early the next morning to the sounds of footsteps skittering about Ezra was in an immense amount of pain. Not only did his neck hurt from sleeping at a strange angle but he hadn’t had a chance to remove his binder the night before. Rubbing his sides, it wasn’t until he blinked with bleary eyes that he realized where he was. 

Getting up, he awkwardly folded the quilt and put it aside. Heading into the kitchen where he heard the most commotion, he squinted around at the two earliest risers. Th4d3s was rifling through the cabinets and Emmie was sat at the table in her nightgown and housejacket looking every bit the matron of the place. She smiled wearily at him and he gave a halfhearted one back, running a hand through hair that stood at odd angles. 

"Pancakes or eggs?" Th4d3s asked the room and there was a resounding reply of "Pancakes." 

Emmie put her cup on the saucer and pointed Ezra to the room next door. 

"Take it off," she demanded and he looked a little confused as he picked at the tightness that squished his body. "You know what I mean. I’ll help you if you need, but for now, take it off before you hurt yourself." 

He looked like he was about to argue but she fit him with a sharp _it’s too early for this_ type of glare and he shuffled next door to the couple’s bedroom. 

The room had warm amber walls, the lamps in there bright and welcoming. The furniture was classical, all curves and dips and shapes. Moving past the four-post bed and the chest at the end he approached the dresser, skirting fingertips across the edge, pausing to pick up a photo framed in silver. 

The couple it belonged to stared out at him, well, Emmie did, Th4d3s only had eyes for his bride it seemed as they dressed in the finest of their time, an unmistakeable white dress meaning it was their wedding photo. It was unusual to see all this, he thought as he replaced the picture and rubbed his eye. Everything felt like a bygone era, from the ornate hairbrush and accessory set, to the vanity table with its _now_ and it cast a surreal shadow over him. 

He heard his hostess shout his name, to which he shouted back for a little more time. Quickly unbuttoning his vest and shirt he peeled off his binder with an expert hand, despite feeling like he dislocated his shoulder to do so. Rubbing the lines left behind by that mess, he looked at them in the mirror, deep and red. Cringing, he lifted his arms to cough and clear out his lungs, just in case. Buttoning everything back up and tucking shirttails in he folded the binder and carried it out. It wasn’t the first time he’d accidentally pulled an all nighter, he was a workaholic after all, but he still didn’t like doing so even if wearing the thing made him feel better. But as always, dysphoria would outweigh worry. 

Returning to the kitchen he sat and put the binder on the spare chair out of view. Th4d3s dropped a plate of pancakes in front of him and gestured to the various breakfast accoutrements that decked the table. Across from him Emmie was inhaling the pancakes like they were going extinct. He smirked and tucked in as well, Th4d3s flicking open a copy of Science Monthly while they ate. The robot smiled self-assuredly as the humans devoured what he made with glee. When they finished Emmie planted a syrupy kiss on his shiny metal finish, which as much as he appreciated, got quickly scrubbed off.

She excused herself to get ready and Ezra rested while Th4d3s cleaned the dishes in the sink. He ran his thumb up and down the red line that was hidden beneath his clothes out of habit, the soreness aching lightly as he thought to himself. 

He was surprised to see her in one of her dresses when she emerged, forgetting momentarily that she changed upstairs. She didn’t let him rest long before she ushered him to the elevator, Th4d3s escorting him and his handful of underclothes out to the hall. When he’d been shot upstairs like a rocket with jazz crooning around him, he scuffled his way to his room. It was earlier than he ever needed to get to work and he didn’t know how JJ did it. Up early and asleep late, the time didn’t seem to take a toll on them. The tea had probably seeped into his veins by now, and Ezra chuckled as he rolled over to catch an extra thirty winks. 

\----- 

JJ lounged about the breakroom with his pen behind his ear. The note in his pocket was sweet, the food in his tummy sweeter and the research he’d done all day was sound. All his flowers were coming up roses right about now, despite the nagging sensation that always waited to settle in his mind when it got quiet and dark. 

At Walter Manor it was never quiet, though, and he appreciated that. When he was in the break room there was always a little conversation, a little research, someone usually pouring Redbull in a thermos. When he was working there was always a problem to figure out, a discussion to be had, a team meeting or a classified file. Down below there was a student to fill his time with, a husband to dote upon and a wall of mice to experiment on. It kept him up until the sunrise and while the shortness of his dark hours didn’t bother him anymore it always left a little to be desired. 

On the long nights when the dark felt a little colder and worries wriggled their way into his mind, he could always count on a strong silver arm to pull him close and either chase it away or quiet it for another day. But recently it didn’t seem to be enough. He felt selfish as it was, keeping his secrets from Th4d3s, and he didn’t like the idea he was reaching for more than just his robot. He’d always been a comfort but now he didn’t know where to seek the security he used to provide. 

He especially didn’t like that the intrusive dialogue had begun following him upstairs now. Sitting up straight, he shook off his thought process. Gazing around at his lunchmates as they babbled and discussed. He caught Ezra’s eye and smiled. No, if he couldn’t sleep at night the least he could do was not drag it up with him to work. 

"See, here I was thinking the only six pack you had was tucked in a can of sardines," JJ jabbed, cutting Pira’s brag off at the knees. The table shared a laugh at his friend’s expense, to which he got a tease in return. Pira’s new nickname for him was the Mummy, due to the bandages that still coiled up his arm and while he’d concede to a clever attempt he always had his own barbs to fire back. They never needed to see what was beneath those bandages, or choke down blue matter pills or watch as green throbbed beneath their skin. No, so let them joke. Let it be a joke. Let it _only_ be a joke.

There was little Ezra needed to worry about and JJ wanted to keep it that way. He was awash with his new powers, dancing with all the little flavours that lived in the very fabric of time and space. He was excited, hell, JJ was excited too, to see what he’d make of those robots he had yet to complete. The teacher wanted to watch that unfold and bask in the secondhand success that came from seeing his knowledge bloom in another. Smiling as the group all talked, they asked questions of each other's projects, gossiped and teased with the rest of them, making the best of the Walter uniform.

And so it goes, the laughter, the smiles, and JJ, quickly forgetting that later that night while everybody slept, at least one person would be wide awake. Waiting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes we put up a good front, especially when our lives seem put together. Sometimes it eats away at us inside. Sometimes that's literal.


	22. Espionage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The halls of Walter Manor are always busy. That isn't a good thing.

After weeks of lessons and putting together puzzling parts the machine was finally finished.

Ezra and Emmie had danced like madmen, waltzing about the lab to the hum of the blue matter which had been successfully installed with steady hands. Its glow was enthralling. After putting its casing together they could hardly sit still, shaking and trembling with excitement. How could they sit at all? How were they supposed to simply rest when all they wanted to do was see it in action? The realm of possibilities they were about to widen sat heavy on their minds and it felt so wrong that there wasn’t trumpets blaring and a parade in their honour. They’d put together a working prototype based entirely on theory, that was a miracle on its own! 

Unfortunately, the task at hand wasn’t over yet. Despite finishing the job quite early in the night they couldn’t simply rip a hole in the cramped quarters of Th4d3s and Emmie’s abode. The estimated stretch the mechanism required was far beyond what they could provide down there, so they needed to make a plan. 

Walter Manor had a massive entrance hall. The wasted elegance of days gone by could attest to it, with a shimmery chandelier dangling precariously from the ceiling that somehow survived the century of misfortune that befell the manor. Greeting guests upon visiting, it is flanked by two long staircases with glass doors leading to some sort of small ballroom beneath the enamouring arch of the steps which are coated in a deep blue carpet. It was huge and grand and perfect for their endeavour. However, the real problem would be getting the machine up there without anybody noticing. 

During the rest of their time together the duo of scientists never sat down. Instead they grappled with ideas, plotting like robbers the best way to get in and get out with Th4d3s as their transporter to carry the precious cargo. They skirted around the tables, addressing the task at hand. What they knew of the security systems was both vast and slim to nothing. They never needed to consider them a threat before but the cameras and robots that coated the place could easily become detrimental to their plans.

"I’m gonna be meeting up with the Spine later tomorrow, I could plant something in the Hall of Wires to cut out the video feed and keep QWERTY out of our hair?" Ezra offered as he tapped his foot, leaning over the table as they looked on the floor plans that he had acquired what felt like ages ago.

"That sounds like a good idea. We should put a timer on it so it gives us a gap to work with. I’ll be with Th4d3s and escort him up with the elevator. You can meet us there and clear the halls on the way." 

"How am I supposed to clear the halls?" He asked and she hardly skipped a beat.

"If you see a robot tell them we’re doing a mass diagnostics check and everyone needs to get plugged in. Direct them to any of the spare diagnostic stations or to go to their rooms and go into stasis and someone will be there shortly." She shook one of her hands habitually as she thought. 

"Alright. How long do you think we’re gonna need on the timer?" Ezra began to fidget as well. They were both nervous, but excited.

"What time are you meeting up?" She asked looking at the clock.

"Uhh, don’t know, I’ll text you when I’m leaving though," he bartered with her and she nodded. 

"Set the timer to go off at one AM. Most if not everyone will be asleep." Emmie told him and he nodded, "How long will the timer keep everything off for? We can’t let anyone realize the cameras are dead, but we also can’t turn it on till we’re done."

"Will we make it in... half an hour?" The estimation ran through her head.

"Yeah.. yeah we might. If we can really hustle and make it to the lobby in about… five minutes and get us to the elevator after."

"Done deal," he agreed. 

They grinned at each other with elation and fear. If all went according to plan, there would be matter in their hands by dawn tomorrow. The thought sent the blood rushing through their hearts double time and it was only at Th4d3s’s prodding that they parted ways and went to bed early for once.

That didn’t mean they slept, though. No matter how comfortable their beds were the excitement made their limbs thrum and tingle with waiting action. Tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough. 

\----- 

Th4d3s was less than well rested, his stasis continually being interrupted by thrilled giggling or aggressive shifting the entire night. He wasn’t bitter about it, he was glad she was happy but he was relieved when Emmie got up early and he could rest in peace. 

She was off the whole morning, a manic excitement sending her running around the rooms and digging things out of drawers and cabinets. He didn’t ask and just continued to make her lunch and tuck it into the paper lunch bag. Chuckling when Emmie’s arms looped around his waist, he paused in his husbandly actions to pat her hands. 

"I love you," she mumbled into the fabric of his shirt. 

"I love you too, darling," he replied softly, turning around and giving her a kiss on the head. 

Handing her the lunch he made, she smiled before being scooted out the door, dropping a bag full of stuff next to the machine for later as she went.

Damn, if she didn’t hate smooth jazz. 

When JJ emerged on the other side of the elevator doors he hustled through the day as fast as he could. The only gap between the unreasonable blur of work was lunchtime. Meeting up with Ezra in the breakroom nearly got them kicked right out. The grinning and excited tapping or shaking or pen clicking was driving their coworkers mad. They couldn’t say a word about anything and it was a downward spiral as they bit their lips to keep their seats at the table.

JJ held onto the post it note on his sandwich for a long while after he smothered his fidgeting. Despite the excess energy he was clearly fighting to slowly eat and savor his food as he ran a thumb over the dark ink that curled across the neon orange square anachronistically. 

_I’m so proud of you. -Th ❤_

The peanut butter and jelly sat sweet and heavy on his tongue as he rolled the note around in his mind. Long after the sandwich was gone and he licked jelly off his fingertips the note stayed in his hand, twirling it around and feeling the scratchy ink. He stood, tossing his trash and pocketing the note. 

"See you later," he smiled to Ezra, who waved happily before JJ slipped away to the relief of the rest of the room. 

See him later he did, soon after rushing downstairs via dumbwaiter and tumbling out of the little box in a full dress with long hair curling down her back once more.

It wasn’t hard to prepare, shuffling the carpet bag onto her shoulder as it bent her at the waist. She’d continued stuffing things into it when she thought Th4d3s wasn’t looking and it made him smirk. He had no idea what it was all for but he trusted the night to go well. 

\-----

Ezra stepped around some of the wires sloppily as they coiled and fed through the entirety of the red room, illuminated in a warm glow. He was a little out of breath as he searched for the proper feed to interrupt. 

He didn’t want to be caught by the Spine in the spider’s web of information so his hands flurried over the individual threads that plugged in everywhere with a bit of urgency. When he found the ones he thought he was looking for they were torn from their ports. Plugging them into a new feed blocker, a little thing that hadn’t taken him long to put together, he introduced the little box into the now empty holes, the video data now being fed through the little timer. Pushing a couple buttons made the display light up and he hurried away from the potential evidence with a hop and a skip over a couple of piles of snaking black wires. Knees a little weak he made it to the door before the Spine spotted him, making him wave as inoffensively as possible.

"I’ll see you around, I suppose?" He choked out a little nervously and tried to smile.

"Hold on there," the robot reached for him and his heart leapt to his throat that he’d been found out. Instead, the Spine fixed his shirt collar, which was messed up. "Gotta keep you looking professional, isn’t that right?" 

The charming smile that came preprogrammed disarmed the alerts going off in Ezra’s brain and he sighed. 

"Yes, thank you!" His face was rather flushed now and he waved himself out of the room, leaving his friend and the trigger behind. 

\-----

He had 10 minutes to get to the elevator and clear the path. 

Those ten minutes felt excruciating as he listened to his footfalls on the white linoleum. He paused every so often to tell some robots to go into stasis for the fictional diagnostics, or to tell the unexpected Walter Worker that he’d been looking for them and to go run said diagnostic. 

The little lie didn’t seem too harsh and it gave both employee and robot something to do. Considering the likelihood that diagnostics were coming up anyway it really couldn’t hurt to get a jump start, even as the Worker grumped off in their PJs to listen to an imaginary superior. 

His shoes felt too loud and he was tempted to remove them even as he whispered across the halls keeping an eye out for anyone or anything that might spot their ragtag little number. 

"Hey, Ezra!" He froze, hackles rising. Not now, no, it’s not him, it’s someone else, just keep walking.

Pira jogged up behind him in sleepytime swimwear, grinning a sharp-toothed grin, "What’re you ignoring me? Whatcha up to out this late?" 

"I, uh, I got told to, to tell anyone awake to run through diagnostics on some of the robots…?" He sounded so uncertain he was surprised when the Walterfish nodded and rubbed their chin.

"Cool, cool, don’t tell anyone you saw me then, I’m heading to bed! I’ll see you tomorrow!" The gentle flapping of bare webbed feet disappeared in the distance and Ezra nearly collapsed with relief. All this stress was gonna kill him one day.

The scuffling of shoes echoed through the stairwell as he descended before hustling to the elevator and checking his watch. He listened to the ticking for a few moments as he tapped his foot in time. After a minute the whirring approached, a loud ‘ding’ announcing their arrival and his heart was in his throat again. The doors opened and he stepped out of their way as Emmie led Th4d3s out. The robot couldn’t see much over the machine in his arms and she guided him with gentle tugs as she hurried along. The elevator almost shut behind them as she stuck her foot out. A bit of a crunch and a wince, it reopened and she grabbed the carpet bag and a thin wooden slat with a handle. Turning to Ezra, she fit him with a determined look and he was sure their pulses matched.

"Let’s go."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything is coming to a close soon.
> 
> Note 1: You cannot tell me Pira doesn't sleep in a fishtank or something. 
> 
> Note 2: That machine is stupid heavy and I'm surprised they could go in the elevator. But then, that thing would bend the laws of physics for that robot.


	23. An Act of Trust (Reprise)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything goes wrong all at once.

The elevator doors closed behind them as Ezra led the pack, checking around corners as they hurried around. He was a small lapse in impulse control away from humming the _Mission Impossible_ theme as his team followed along behind. Dodging behind things at Emmie’s direction, Ezra sent people away and played every bit the spy he was imagining until the long walk found them where they needed to be.

Th4d3s nearly ran into Emmie when they paused at the edge of the entrance hall, the robot was excited since he hadn’t seen the upstairs in nearly thirty years as he lived in the confines of their little hallway. His gaze had been anywhere but where he’d been walking, taking in the blue and white motif that seemed the epitome of decorum until the top couple of floors where it was replaced with the sprawling, wallpapered Victorian halls that were plastered in bizarre art. He barely noticed until the light **thunk** of metal against skull.

Ezra entered the large open space and looked around. The chandelier was dark, a gust of air swept into the room and sent a chill down his back. The place was empty, nobody wanted to be in the coldest room of the building that night and they used that to their advantage. 

A large wave to Emmie and she scurried over to unfold the wooden slats. The table quickly took shape and Th4d3s slowly plodded over, heavily placing the machine onto the stable surface. She rubbed his arm, his smile a response to the massaging the servos in his elbows got in reward for maintaining fairly well under the stress. Abandoning his side, the machine took precedent.

Deftly, fingers began pressing buttons and fumbling switches. The two scientists, one very old and one very young, worked so perfectly in tandem you’d never think there was something different on their minds. They had tested the machine prior and knew full well its capabilities but as it warmed up it scared them half to death. A lot of time and effort rode upon this and the off chance it didn’t work was haunting them. 

A blast of bright blue energy startled them back from the contraption as a concentrated beam focused like a laser across the room, a circle forming neatly in the air as a hole was punched between dimensions.

They forgot themselves a moment, Ezra cheering as Emmie jumped up and down, clasping her hands in front of her. He hurried around to the bulb at the back, waiting for it to fill with matter. Glancing up over the machine, he saw the hole begin to crack. 

"Emmie… Emmie, something’s wrong," He said urgently, looking at the girl who’s back was to him as the chandelier quivered above them. "Emmie!"

She turned slowly, smiling as the rip widened. 

Ezra froze, her teary-eyed, gleeful expression was illuminated in the dark chamber by the beam they built together. He looked to Th4d3s whose brow had furrowed in confusion, long blue wires whipping about in the wind. Whether that was from the machine or the blustery weather outside he couldn’t tell. 

The rip widened even more, a veritable tear with burning silver-blue edges and beyond, the galaxy. Space flew around JJ now, haloing her hair. He stepped backwards, picking up his skirts a bit as he retreated towards the gap that grew with every step. Ezra couldn’t tell if laughter or crying was burbling from their throat. 

"What’s going on? Emmie… Emmie, I don’t understand?!" He shouted and she cringed.

The devil Ezra spoke of still held the carpet bag she’d packed earlier, they gripped it tightly as the vacuum beyond began to pull at his skirts. Emmie stood next to the widening gap as he wept and smiled.

"He never asked if I wanted to go home." 

Ezra paused, gripping the table as he tried to listen to her watery voice but it all blurred together now, reality becoming weak. He was barely aware of the alarm that was going off somewhere in the distance. 

"What?"

"He never asked… If I wanted **to go _HOME!_** " She screamed at him, angry now, and sad, every part of him in flux as she gripped at his long hair that didn’t match who he was, burning her fingers, every bit a mess of human. "Six closed everything off before I could go home! I, I came back here thinking I could pick up where I left but... " He cried in earnest now, "Everyone I knew is dead. My Mom. My Dad. My friends, Aunt Pru. They died of old age. Or sickness. And I left them behind, I left them here to rot, and I couldn’t even go back to Kazooland because Six closed the **_door!"_**

Every rise in their speech made the crack widen to the ceiling and Ezra was started by the sudden shift. She wiped their face and beamed at him weakly, desperate to tell him it wasn’t his fault.

"If I go back Th4d3s never has to know. If I go back time will stand still. If I go back my new friends will forget about me, like every time I’ve gotten fired every five years. He can see the outside," she gestured to her husband, "He doesn’t have to know. JJ can die. It’ll be like a terrible dream. He doesn’t have to **_KNOW!"_**

_CRASH!_

The chandelier came down in a shattering of glass, the three of them cowering as baubles flew every which way. Ezra looked on in fear, betrayal gripping his heart. 

"I taught you to take care of my mice. I taught you to control matter, every form you can imagine is now open to you. It’ll come through the machine and I can leave. I can go home. Th4d3s," he turned to his husband, shifting in her heels uncomfortably. His voice was weak and tired as he held out his hand, "Will you come home with me, please, we can keep going. Do you remember?"

Th4d3s looked from her hand, to the crack that could swallow the Manor whole, to Ezra who he’d learned to trust. The boy’s expression broke his heart and the silver robot stood against the harsh wind, "I remember better than you do, luv. You’re falling apart. We need to stop this, you can still turn this around. I don’t… You need to come home. Please," his voice fizzled with emotion and he approached her like one approaches a deer, fleeting and afraid.

"You’re... you’re not going back with me?" He asked weakly, voice cracking as he gripped the bag he packed earlier. "You’re... you’re..." Tears slipped from their eyes as their face scrunched up, staining their features with distraught. _**"You’re coming with me!"**_ He clenched his fist and Th4d3s seized up.

"Th4d3s!" Ezra yelled, reaching to help his friend as the robot was swept off his feet, the concentration of orange matter dragging him across the room to his wife. Ezra dashed at Emmie with reckless abandon, the blur of white and blue collided with her, the robot quickly following as the three fell through the tear into the galaxy below. 

\-----

.  
..  
...  
….

The air in Kazooland was strange. It bled through your lungs and your organs and blood and held you quite at a standstill until you could adjust.

When Ezra blinked himself back into his right mind, he couldn’t tell which was the proper way up. The gentle floating through the atmosphere was confusing and in the distance he saw land, like islands in the vastness of purple dark, speckled with stars and suns that gave off twinkling light. Each area was bright and colorful and different, breath catching as he looked with awe and curiosity. Wafting his arms through the breathable swamp of space, he kept himself what felt like upright, lest his ears begin to pop.

A few feet away Emmie and Th4d3s orbited around each other, Th4d3s looking like his mind was shaken, not stirred as he recovered from her mental death grip on his consciousness. JJ was curled up in a ball, drifting softly and turning as their sobs, muffled by his skirt, fell flat in the unechoable silence of the universe.

Checking on Th4d3s first, he paddled over and helped him focus, the robot gathering himself and looking at him in surprise. Pointing at JJ they swam to her as she clamped his fingers into their long hair as if to tug it off. The shaking of their little body was a sad sight as the two of them gently turned him upright and pulled him close to them, their grip on each other the only stable thing in the dimension, it felt like. 

"I’m sorry," he hissed between sharp breaths, "I’m sorry!"

"Shh… It’s alright, I forgive you," Th4d3s murmured into her hair, cradling her with a dark expression. 

"Emmie… JJ, look at me," Ezra commanded as gently as he could despite his obvious fear and anger, his own voice quivering. "This didn’t change anything. This didn’t change who you are inside. Being quiet about it and accepting your fate will not help. Believe me," he confided as his friend’s bloodshot eyes gazed at him intently, tears floating in the air around them.

"I don’t know what to do. I don’t... Everything I’ve, I’ve ever done has consequences." JJ warbled weakly with a voice like cut glass. Ezra sighed as weariness seeped out of him, tears floating off his face as well making him realize that he, too, had been crying.

"Everyone does. You can’t avoid them or pretend they didn’t happen. I can’t pretend your family didn’t die back on Earth. I can’t pretend abandoning your friends was easy. I, I couldn’t imagine living like that." JJ’s face scrunched up again when he was reminded and two pairs of reassuring arms wrapped around him, "You have friends at Walter Manor _now_ though, ones who know _you,_ ones you could share your secrets with if you let them." 

Emmie’s breath caught in their throat a little, looking at them both as they tried their best to smile, "I got here though… I made it back…”

"I know, sweetheart," Th4d3s kissed the side of her head. "But we need to go home now. This isn’t where we belong anymore."

"I love you, Th4d3s," they gasped out like it was the last time they’d say it, fingers tangling in his shirt front.

"I love you too, Emmie," Th4d3s replied in a soft voice and she squirmed.

"Please don’t call me that," JJ replied quietly, "I don’t like that name so much anymore." 

Th4d3s held her at arm's length, gently caressing her face and looking a her, "What should I call you, then? Should I make up a new one?" He asked, only half joking, and JJ looked at Ezra. His expression spurred them on. 

"Could you, maybe, call me... JJ," their voice became quieter as they continued fearfully, "I kind of, like dressing like.. a, a boy, I like _being_ a boy, most of the time. I’m, I’m, uh…” 

Th4d3s smiled softly at them, "You must make a very cute boy." 

JJ’s face turned very blue, "I like to think so," they agreed quietly. That response made Th4d3s grin. 

"I suppose my very beautiful wife will also make a very cute husband," The robot gave them a little kiss and they blushed and whined a bit. "Silly JJ, I loved you since I was a bottle on your shelf. Don’t you think for a moment any of this will change that."

"It might change a lot," Ezra interrupted, looking at the slice in reality they had opened. Walter Manor was bending through it, dangerously close to turning inside out and appearing in this realm from the next. 

"Oh no...." JJ whispered, heart heavy with guilt as they looked at it with wide eyes, grabbing their bag of stuff. "We need to get back, _now!"_ Frantically gathering energy, they shot the group back to the tear and gripped the edge before swinging a leg up. 

Trying to squeeze through that rift while literally everything else in the universe is going in the opposite direction feels like squishing your entire existence through a tube. They couldn’t breathe as the three of them breached the cut, forcing and pushing and bracing themselves on the burning edges until they popped through the other side like bubbles, desperately gasping for air as if they were drowning. 

They didn’t have time to recover before stumbling to their feet, JJ commanding Th4d3s to turn off the machine any way he could, the alarm that blared in the distance suddenly becoming loud in their ears as the world warped and shifted like sand around them. 

JJ grabbed one side of the wide rift and pulled. It felt as though they were closing a heavy curtain, struggling as they tried to shut it with all their energy. Ezra quickly joined them, the blue matter as cold as ice and he almost couldn’t hold it as the laser beam fluctuated and shattered like the chandelier. He got a better grip and tried to seal the thirty foot tall wound that gaped and hissed with their energy. 

Together, JJ and Ezra finished what they started.

The two boys combined their strengths, the ice cold from the matter fighting them at every turn. Ezra wished, desperately, for some help, for some strength to come to him. He felt something, something different and strange before finally, just like with every matter Ezra had ever learned, they got the upper hand.

A surge of control flooded through them and unstoppable laughter escaped blue lips as reality stabilized beneath their very feet. It began to close, its width and height diminishing. It sealed and ripped, sealed and ripped, until finally it was gone. 

Gripping the wrinkle in reality where the spot once was, the world fell eerily silent. The alarm blaring quietly in the distance was gone and the only cold they felt was the breeze that ghosted into the entrance hall on the Winter air. Reluctance filled them as they hazarded letting go. Counting down under his breath, Ezra released the air and his hold on the fabric of the universe. Waiting a minute, JJ rescinded his claim as well, stepping back.

Looking at each other, a smile broke out. Relieved chuckles floated through the air until the sound of slow, resigned clapping came to them and the trio looked up in surprise. 

On the balcony above, Peter Walter the Sixth rang out slow, decisive applause

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note 1: The machine intentionally ripped.
> 
> Note 2: I like to think the atmosphere around Kazooland is breathable.
> 
> Note 3: JJ got the short end of the stick here, I think. I didn't want to villainize them incredibly, I also didn't want those who cared about them to "defeat" them. They just... fell apart. Thirty years of lying, and hiding their gender, and losing their friends, and leaving behind their loved ones without so much as an heirloom besides what they had in Kazooland, It's like trying to pour cupfuls of water on a house fire. They hadn't intended to betray Ezra the entire time. They wanted to leave him their legacy. They just saw the opportunity when the machine was halfway through, and took it.
> 
> Most importantly, they're safe now. Getting help comes next.


	24. Finale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oooooh, they're in trouble~

From the keyhole mask to the mess of brown hair to the nightcap on his head that matched the bunny slippers on his feet, nothing looked more surreally intimidating at that moment than Peter Walter the Sixth. The man wasn’t much older than Ezra, but when the clapping stopped and his voice rang out something unusual made the three rule breakers feel like children again, despite one being much older than their addresser.

"Good job cleaning that whole rift mess up before we turned out like the Cavalcadium, yeah? Now you’ve got a whole different one to fix." He gestured to the shattered chandelier that had survived generations but apparently couldn’t survive them. The trio cringed at the sheer amount of _I’m not mad, just disappointed_ that resonated in him.

"JJ," The head of the company spoke and the namesake shook in his boots a moment, "I’m sorry."

It was the last thing any of them expected to hear, to be frank, and JJ could only reply, "huh?"

"You meant so much to my family but I ignored how you felt for the sake of safety and the sake of science. I should have come to you with the things that would dramatically shift your life, instead I did them of my own accord," JJ felt relieved a bit that he wasn’t about to get a vile talking to, "however…."

The man began strolling down the stairs and when he reached the bottom he side stepped the destroyed chandelier with little regard, "You did break a significant amount of the rules we had set up! You broke my house! You nearly pulled us into Kazooland! You dragged Ezra into it!" He gestured with a noodly limb to the boy who looked sheepish, "Look, I understand you may have come into this with good intentions and it became twisted along the way but there are consequences for these things!"

"Yes, Sir," JJ replied, looking away as Th4d3s shrunk behind his husband in the man’s presence.

"Look, I’m not about to fire you since you have nowhere else to go, and you probably already have a ridiculous amount of tenure par with the early contracts. But we’re going to need to sort some stuff out. You too, Ezra, we’re gonna need to talk. First, however," Six pulled out a couple brooms and nodded his head to the crystal splattered across the floor, "you’re gonna need to do your time. I take it you guys are used to late nights? Good luck." When they took the broomsticks, Peter turned and began his ascent up the stairs.

"Oh, yes, I almost forgot," He dug something out of his pocket and tossed it down to Ezra, who caught it, "I take it that’s yours."

Upon closer inspection, it was the timer Ezra had planted earlier in the Hall of Wires. Six sent a wave over his shoulder before disappearing out of view and the stunned set of people could do little more than gaze after him in awe before silently beginning to clean.

\-----

When they were packing up the machine the next morning to send it to Six’s lab for its inspection and, in all likelihood, its disassembly, it was understandable that Ezra and JJ were disappointed. They’d worked so hard on it and been so happy when it was finished, they hardly expected an aftermath such as this to just take it all away. When Th4d3s lifted it, however, they’d completely forgotten it’s original purpose until purple gossamer liquid spilled it’s way into the glass jar on the end.

They bustled around it suddenly, both shouting at the confused robot until he put it back down at an angle, pouring out the rest for them to unscrew and remove. The bottle was swiftly corked, but Ezra beamed as he held it up to the light. It looked like liquid silk, smooth and elegant and beautiful.

"Welcome to Earth, purple matter!" JJ chirped happily to it as it swirled about.

Ezra stashed it in his teacher’s bag before anyone could find it and comment. He could’ve gazed at it for hours or begun work right then and there but he knew it wasn’t feasible, not when there was his punishment to go over.

JJ packed up the table, looking back at the giant bags they’d fit under the stairs full of the crystal bits they’d mangled. Something would be done about that, surely? Hefting the wooden slats over his shoulder by the handle he managed to lead them to Six’s personal lab to drop off their mechanism.

When the thing clunked onto the desk, Six fit them with an invisible look, hidden behind his mask and he fiddled with its numerous buttons and switches. It was a bit miserable to watch as it hummed to life, moments before being taken apart. The casing was removed and he inspected all the bits and bobs that decorated the insides. Ezra kept his eyes on the ground but JJ began shaking his hand at the wrist anxiously. The poking and prodding went on forever, pieces getting taken off as he analyzed and disassembled until there was nothing left but the pile of parts, weeks of work strewn across the table.

"I want you to put it back together," Six said finally after a long pause left the air feeling stale.

"The machine…?" JJ looked confused.

"You didn’t name it?!" He looked practically offended and Ezra and JJ looked at each other.

"No…?" Ezra said slowly.

"Well now you _have_ to name it!" He fit the pair with a stern glare and they awkwardly put their heads together to think of something real quick.

"Uh, we named it the, the, uh," JJ stumbled over his words.

"It’s the TransDimensional Matter Collector!" Ezra said somewhat confidently.

"The TDMaCo? Hmm, not bad, I’d’ve named it Darlene, personally," he clapped his hands together like punctuation, "The good news, I want you guys to put MaCo back together, and I’m going to switch around your schedules because as useful as you are to me in robotics and matter work, I need you to work on this, specifically. I want to know what you did to open the most controlled rift since Hatchworth’s hatch. I want to see if we can make a safe, easy to use portal back to Kazooland for our staff to use on holidays since we were able to close the rift a couple years ago."

Ezra and JJ blinked with surprise, exclaiming and laughing and grinning all together at the prospect, and pressure, of working on such a huge project together.

"The bad news," Six’s voice became amused, "is that before you put this together, I have something else you will need to put together in the lab I will assign you both, before I give you the team you’ll be leading."

"What is it?" Ezra asked as excitement leapt around in his chest.

"This," Six gestured to the bags of crystal that they’d cleaned up earlier, delivered neatly to the door by some of the staff. Their faces fell in dismay as they turned back to him, "What, did you expect me _not_ to punish you?" He laughed, "No, no, these will be delivered to your new lab, and JJ, if you need you can get some new uniforms before your certification. I can guarantee you’ll pass, don’t you worry."

JJ beamed at him, despite the sheer waste of time that was going to befall them pretty soon. Ezra looked dejected as Th4d3s giggled to himself over the circumstances.

"Will you be going for Matter Master Certification too, Ezra?" Six asked and the young man shook his head.

"Maybe in the future, but not right now, no."

"Well, think about it. With JJ as your tutor, I’m sure you’ll go far," Six stretched a bit and twisted to crack and pop his back, "and don’t either of you worry about starting over in a couple years. Your stations are permanent until otherwise assigned, got it?" JJ was certain their heart would burst with happiness. He’d never be fired again, not like he was before, and his friends…

"If that’s all, let me tell you I’m incredibly tired. You boys take the day off and rest up. I’ll file for your new work tonight and you’ll get the assignments tomorrow. I’ll see ya later alligators!" Shooing them out of the lab, he shut the door in their faces and left them in silence.

A smile spread between the three of them quietly and without even thinking about it they charted a course through Walter Manor in the grey-skied early hours. The humans put their chilly fingers on Th4d3s’s warm metal arms as they strolled and chatted over plans for the future. They wound up at JJ’s spotless room above ground, not a hint that anyone lived there besides the neatly folded clothes and the note pinned to the top that JJ quickly discarded.

Giving them a little privacy, when he emerged he wore the pressed white tailcoat with ease. The shimmery off-white stripes of the lab uniform fit him as well as they always have, hair clipped short and neat again, blue pants and knee high boots that never changed giving him an air of confidence he hadn’t lacked, no, but grew into over time. Th4d3s let out a low whistle when JJ twirled for him upon request and they collapsed into light laughter.

"My bag please, Th4d3s," they requested and plucked it from his arm. Opening it, he paused and dug out a book. Handing it to Ezra, he smiled. "I was going to give this to you but I ran out of time. I hope you’ll fill it up properly."

Taking what he had thought was a novel, Ezra looked at the thick grey hardcover notebook with bright blue embossing decorating it’s outside. On the spine was a sharp number 1 like the numbers that covered their own notebooks, implying a series was to come. Cracking the cover open for the first time, neatly scrawled in traditional Victorian penmanship was his name.

This Book Belongs To  
_Ezra D. Chamberlain the Second_

He teared up a little as he ran his fingers over the ink and smiled. Snapping it shut, he crushed JJ in a hug, laughing and grinning together until he released the smaller boy.

JJ took the time to fill the rest of the carpet bag up with the uniforms that sat in the drawers as sterile and empty as the rest of the unused room. "Okay, let’s blow this popsicle stand."

Th4d3s slung the bag over his shoulder and began to braid his wires neatly as they took the jaunty stroll to the staircase. Tying it off with some stray ribbon, JJ complimented it and ran his fingers over the rope his husband made of his synthetic hair. Wordlessly agreeing that a night spent together might be best for their weary souls they trotted down the staircase. Ezra stopped them to pause at the floor his lab was on.

"Hold on, I need to drop off some stuff," he reached into the carpet bag and dug out the bottle of purple matter that came alive under his supervision. Sprinting out of the staircase and down the hall he skidded to a stop in front of his door, unlocking it and hurrying inside. He approached the chassis of the robots he could finally, _finally_ finish. He smiled at them, silently, in the darkness of the room, running his hand over their cool metal a moment before placing the jar of matter and the notebook next to them, ready for the project to end all projects.

Grabbing the spare pair of pajamas he kept in the drawer in the wall, he hurried out the door to his friends, locking it behind him.

"C’mon man, we have lots to talk about!" JJ chided when he rejoined them and he apologized, grinning before they hit the elevator where Th4d3s pushed the button until it glowed gold.

"Going down?" The silver man joked as it arrived and they piled inside.

"How about one more photo, what do you think?" JJ asked when the doors opened and they filed out into the hall.

"We look terrible, but sure, why not!" Ezra agreed.

Th4d3s gave a rousing chorus of "Here, Here!" when they opened the door and quickly set up the camera, making sure it had fresh film as everyone gathered together by the wall.

JJ beamed into the lens as Th4d3s grabbed them both and pulled them in close, leaning down happily with his hand on his husband’s waist and his friend’s shoulder. A sharp click and the flash bulb went off, blinding the group momentarily before they broke down in a fresh set of giggles.

Everyone changed into comfortable clothes, replacing bandages on the now-healing wounds that had once been raw and painful along JJ’s scarred arm. Tucking the camera into its corner and removing the film plates to process when they woke, Ezra and JJ babbled about their new ideas and solutions to the very rip that they had caused. They gathered cozily on the couch with Th4d3s who was happy to doze as his husband chattered under his arm, long legs spread out on the ottoman as they curled up together to discuss… everything.

They would talk and they would heal with the full knowledge that their friendship was stronger than a tear in the whole of the universe. They knew they’d need more time than one morning’s worth to fix the fractured trust but the new station they’d be assigned would provide more than enough work for them to dance around in tandem.

Eventually the clock chimed that everyone else in the building was waking to the sounds of morning but levels below they were fast asleep, content to dream dreams of the void above Kazooland and the bridge they’d build together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for sticking it out until the end of this story if you did! I really hope you had a fun time reading it as much as I had a fun time writing it! 
> 
> Ezra belongs to PureSugarKane (tumblr)
> 
> JJ belongs to me thedarklordemma (tumblr)
> 
> If you liked the art at the end feel free to check out my art blog (doodling-gods tumblr)
> 
> And thanks again for reading! Check out some of my other works, or follow me for more!

**Author's Note:**

> Yay! That's for reading self indulgent OC fics. A lovely gift to Kane my boyo, my small son, my child, who made Ezra.


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